


Dimension Four

by frecklesarechocolate



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Human, Angst, DCBB 2014, DeanCas Big Bang 2014, Fluff, Gen, Happy Ending, Homophobia, Homophobic Language, Implied Mafia, Implied/Referenced Sexual Harassment, Labor Unions, Language, M/M, Minor Character Death, Minor Violence, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Quantum Leap AU, Threats of Violence, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-23
Updated: 2014-11-22
Packaged: 2018-02-26 16:42:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 27,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2659055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frecklesarechocolate/pseuds/frecklesarechocolate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cas steps into the time machine that he, Dean and Sam have created and disappears into the slipstream of time. While Cas is thrown from one year to the next at random, it's up to Dean to be his guide until they can find a way to bring Cas back home. Cas experiences the lives of others, and learns some things about himself along the way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 1979

**Author's Note:**

> Whew! So I've been working on this for a really, really long time. Thank you so, so, so much to all the people who helped me with this: [Lis](http://clotpoleofthelord.tumblr.com), [Julie](http://xylodemon.tumblr.com), [Laana](http://dumplingdean.tumblr.com), Rexy (I can't remember your current URL bb, sorry!), and probably about a billion other people who I'm forgetting (you're right there in my heart!). Thanks to everyone who encouraged me to continue working on it, even when I was _this_ close to giving up. It's been a struggle to get anything written over the past year. Thank you for sticking with me on this, and I hope that you enjoy it.
> 
> Please also check out the awesome art by [Lis](http://clotpoleofthelord.tumblr.com)!!!

 

“Ed?” A hand with long red fingernails waves in front of his face. “Ed, you all right?” The voice belonging to the hand is female, laced with irritation. He squints, blinks his eyes in the suddenly bright light and tries to figure out who’s talking to him.

“Ed!” The voice says again. A hand claws at his bicep, trying to pull him upright. He doesn’t know why this person keeps insisting on calling him Ed when his name is clearly...

Huh.

He can’t figure that part out. He knows his name isn’t Ed. How he knows this, he can't say, but the fact remains that he is definitely not Ed. Whatever his real name is, he can’t access it, it’s like it’s there, but behind a locked door that he can’t get through.

His eyes adjust and he can see the face of the woman who’s been talking to him. Blonde, with pale blue eyes, she’s wearing just a touch too much make up. Her hair is piled high up on top of her head, defying gravity with at least half a bottle of hairspray to help out. He takes a long look at the woman, trying to pull up a name from the recesses of his mind, but he can’t.

“Oh, thank goodness. Ed, I thought you had killed yourself or something. Come on now, get up. We have to finish moving all this furniture.” She stands up, dusting her hands together. The stuffed chair next to him hovers at an awkward angle in the stairwell, and he realizes they must have been moving it before his... episode? He can’t shake the feeling that this isn’t quite right, like with his name - he isn’t Ed, no matter how many times the woman calls him that, it’s just not his name. He can’t explain it anymore than he can get rid of the certainty.

He heaves himself up and contemplates the chair. Clearly he’s meant to move it, the question is were they going up the stairs or down? The woman - whatever her name is - has disappeared, although he can hear her snapping orders at someone else out of sight. He sighs and presses his hand to his forehead. He’s got a headache too, thudding just behind his right eye.

The clacking of heels signals her return to the stairwell. She peers down at him from the landing above. “Well, are you coming up or not?”

That answers that question. He shifts the chair, maneuvering awkwardly beneath it, and manages to heave it up into his arms. The chair is just a little too heavy, and he hopes that he doesn’t have to move it up higher than the landing, which is just a few more steps above him.

When he gets the chair up to the landing, she directs him to put it in the larger of the two rooms inside the apartment. It’s mostly empty of furniture - they must be moving in - with a few boxes stacked by the side of the door. There’s a younger man seated on the floor by a bookcase, unloading a box by his side. Looking up when he enters, the young man tilts his chin. “Hey, man.”

He nods at the younger man and sets down his burden. Walking over to the window, he peers out at the scene below, trying to get a better idea of what’s going on here. It’s a relatively small street, with a line of cars along one side. He shakes his head as a new feeling of wrongness settles on his shoulders. The cars look just a little wrong. Too long, large and somewhat off color, the cars give the impression of being quaint. The people walking on the sidewalk below are dressed oddly - long flowing skirts and loose blouses, wide-legged pants and wild hair.

He backs away from the window, trying to keep down the roiling nausea that threatens to overwhelm him. Finding refuge in the other room in the apartment, he closes the door and leans against it, eyes closed. After a moment or so, his stomach calms down, but that feeling that things aren’t right doesn’t go away. Since this room is completely empty, he slides down and sits on the floor, blocking the door with his back.

A moment later he’s startled by a swishing sound. He opens his eyes to see another man stepping out of... well, nothing. He’s haloed by a bright, rectangular light which disappears as soon as he steps forward.

“Cas!” The man kneels down in front of him, and a small piece of the tension he’s been holding inside breaks away. The name “Cas” seems much more right than Ed had.

The man kneeling in front of him is handsome, almost stunningly so. He has a spray of freckles on his nose and cheeks, which are framed above by a pair of bright green eyes and below by plush, bow-shaped lips. Cas opens his mouth to say something, anything, but all that comes out is some kind of startled croak.

The man’s forehead creases in concern, eyes softening. “Oh. You don’t know who I am, do you?”

Cas shakes his head, miserable. He’s overwhelmed by the dislocation; he doesn’t know the woman or the man outside this room, but the man inside it resonates somehow with Cas. His head throbs, like it wants to split open.

“Uh, okay. So, you and Sam thought this might happen.” The man sits, legs crossed. “I’m Dean, you’re Cas.” The man grins, revealing a perfect set of white teeth. “We work together, and you apparently decided to get going without me or Sam, which is so damn dumb, Cas, I can’t...” Dean stops himself, scrubbing his face. “Anyway, this,” here Dean waves his hand around the room. Cas notices a device in his hand, about the size of a large cell phone. “This is, according to Sam’s calculations, 1979.”

Goose bumps rise on Cas’s arms. He doesn’t remember much of anything, only has vague sensations to work with. Impressions of rightness or wrongness. 1979 feels wrong, like the name “Ed” felt wrong, like the woman with the fingernails felt wrong.

“That’s...”

Dean laughs, throwing his head back, exposing a lightly freckled neck. “Not possible, right? I know, but man, you did it! We did it! And no flying deLorean either!” Dean looks a little disappointed at this last piece of information, and Cas sees a flash of a gray, angular car in his mind’s eye. But the disappointment disappears from Dean’s face as soon as it had appeared. “Time travel, dude. You and Sammy worked together on all the calculations and I built the thing, and we did it, we figured out how to travel through time.”

Dean leans over to clap Cas on the shoulder, and they’re both startled when Dean’s hand goes straight through Cas.

“Oh. Right. So, I’m just a hologram, a projection. I’m back in 2014 with Sam, in the holo chamber. You’re here in 1979, and... uh.” Dean pauses, looks down at the device in his hand. “Well, we’re not sure how to get you back.”

Cas processes this for a minute, the sounds of movement from the other room leaking through the door. “So, I’m stuck here in 1979? Forever?” Cas tilts his head to the side, squinting at Dean.

“Not forever, we hope!” Dean says, looking alarmed. “Sam’s working on it, and you know Sam...” Dean stops when Cas raises an eyebrow at this. “Yeah, right. So, uh, when Sammy’s working on something, he just doesn’t let it go until he’s got the answer. We’ll get you out of this, buddy.”

Dean looks up, listening to something that only he can hear. “Damn. Sam says that I can only talk with you for a little bit at a time. Uses up too much juice or something.” Dean taps the handheld device, and the bright doorway opens behind him. “I’ll be back as soon as I can, Cas. Meantime...just stay low, okay? We’ll get you home soon.” Dean steps through the door and vanishes.

* * *

 

Cas - that’s how he thinks of himself now - Cas manages to get through the rest of the afternoon without too many gaffs. The woman’s name is Sadie, a fact he learns when the other person in the apartment, Joe, uses it. At dinnertime, the three of them crowd around a tiny table in the center of the kitchen, which is filled with muted green and mustard yellow appliances. The kitchen reminds Cas of ... well, something, but he’s not sure what.

Sadie chatters away about not much of anything, smoking a cigarette while they eat, and Cas tries not to cough. The smoke burns his throat and eyes, but he doesn’t say anything about it, mostly because he’s not sure of the reaction he’ll get. He fumbles with his fork, the only outward sign of his confusion. Everything about being here just feels wrong, but he’s stuck. He tries not to let the fear of that settle in his gut. What if he’s stuck here forever in 1979? What if he’s stuck as this Ed forever?

It’s difficult to breathe, and not just because of the cigarette smoke. His chest tightens the longer he sits at the table, so he pushes the chair back, nearly knocking it over.

“Excuse me,” he says.

Sadie frowns. “Ed?”

“I. I just need some air.” Cas doesn’t wait for a response, bolting from the kitchen and out of the apartment. He rushes down the staircase and bursts onto the street. It’s early evening, the sun just beginning to set, and there’s a cool breeze, which is like a balm on his sweaty brow. He begins to walk in the direction of the sun, squinting against the glare.

“You okay?” Dean says from beside him, making Cas jump.

“Dean,” Cas says. “Don’t do that.”

Dean shoots him a cocky grin. “Ha. You can’t hear my footsteps, which means now I can sneak up on you. Dude, this is awesome.”

Cas rolls his eyes. “You say we’re friends?”

“Since forever, man.” Dean’s fallen into step beside him. “Listen, Sam’s working on how to get everything working again so you can come home. But it looks like you’re going to be stuck here for a little while, anyway.”

Cas grunts, but continues walking. The fact that he basically was expecting this doesn’t stop his stomach from sinking. He may not remember much about who he is, but being here isn’t it, and he’d love to be sometime other than 1979.

“Sam’s got this, Cas. I know you don’t remember him, not yet, but he’s got this, and he won’t let you be stuck here. Oh. And he thinks that your memory might come back, too.”

“That’s good,” Cas says. “I think? It might be harder with my memory back. Knowing what I’m missing.” Cas misses the slight flush that crawls up Dean’s cheeks at this.

Dean clears his throat. “Yeah. I get that. Look, I gotta go, but just know that we’re doing everything we can.” Cas nods and watches Dean step back through the bright doorway again.

He turns around, heading back to the apartment. He figures he’ll tell Sadie and Joe he’s just tired from the move, and that he’ll be better in the morning. He hopes he can act it after some sleep.

* * *

 

Cas’s feeling of discombobulation doesn’t go away with a night’s sleep, mostly because he doesn’t sleep well at all. He spends most of the night lying frozen next to Sadie in their bed, trying not to roll too close to her. He’s not sure how much more of this he can take.

Neither is Sadie, who spends much of breakfast shooting him strange looks and looking as if she wants to say something. Every time she opens her mouth, though, she thinks better of it, and shuts it immediately.

Cas is grateful that it’s a Saturday and that he apparently has the day off. Sadie goes off to work, admonishing him to get his shit together by the time she gets home. “Oh, and it’s an even day. Put some gas in the car,” she says as she walks out the door.

Cas puzzles over that last statement for a while. The apartment’s empty; Joe had gone to work himself earlier in the morning. Cas spends some time by the window, peering out onto the street, watching the passers-by, trying to figure out what Sadie had meant. He half expects Dean to show up at any moment, so he’s reluctant to leave the apartment, though he suspects that Dean will show up wherever he is.

Deciding to take a walk, Cas pulls on a plaid jacket that’s hanging by the door. It fits him well, though he eyes the wide lapels with distaste. He may not have his memory, but he does have a vague idea that what passed for fashion in the late 1970s was pretty damn ugly.

When he gets to the corner of the next block, he finds his answer about the gas. The sign at the gas station explains that cars with even numbered license plates are only allowed to fill up their cars on even days and odd license plates are only allowed to fill up on odd days. Cas files away the information to ask Dean about later - he knows there’s a reason for the strange system, but he can’t quite remember it.

He returns back to the apartment, no more clear on what he’s supposed to do than he was before he left. He’s faced with an additional dilemma, which is that he doesn’t even know which car is theirs, let alone where the car keys are.

Dean appears, floating in midair, as Cas is climbing up the stairs to the apartment. A curious expression crosses his face when he realizes. “Oh wow. This is awesome.”

“Hello, Dean,” Cas says. His stomach does a little flip flop. He’s pleased to see his friend, even though he only has Dean’s word on that fact. Dean’s his only connection to his reality - his own time, his memories - and he feels some of the tension bleed out of his shoulders.

“Hey Cas. So, Sam found out some stuff. We should probably talk about it inside.” Dean jerks his thumb at the apartment door above, and Cas nods. Cas trudges up to his landing by himself. He unlocks the door, and as he’s opening it, Dean pokes his head through.

“You here yet? Come on, man.” Dean laughs, delighted with himself.

Cas shoves the door open, even though he knows that it won’t do any good - Dean is incorporeal here, which is why he can stick his head through doors and float in midair. It’s still satisfying when Dean reacts as if he could be hurt by the door, stumbling back quickly. Cas smirks.

“Ha ha, very funny,” Dean says. He folds his arms over his chest. “So Sam says that your name is Ed Miller, and you work in a box factory. Man, that’s got to be a pretty boring job.” Dean peers down at the handheld device. “You have a high school education, and you’re engaged to Sadie Smith.” Dean looks up at that. “I mean, Ed’s engaged.” He clears his throat. “Sam says...” Dean hesitates, and then rushes through the rest. “According to what he found, Ed Miller gets killed in a fight in two days.”

Cas sits down heavily on the couch. “Oh.”

“Yeah. And. Well, we haven’t been able to figure out how to get you back yet. Sam says it’s going to take a little longer than two days.”

Cas rubs his chin. “How much longer, exactly?”

Dean looks away, suddenly fascinated by the potted plant that’s by the door. “Maybe two weeks.”

“Maybe?”

“Or more like a month.”

Cas nods. He’d been expecting this to be the answer. Dean looks dejected, his shoulders slumped, like it’s his fault that Cas has to wait a month to get home, but only has two days to live.

“But Sam’s working on it 24/7, man, and he’s called in Ash.”

“Don’t let Ash near my computer, Dean,” Cas says, scowling.

“What?” Dean says, jaw dropping. “You remember Ash?”

“Uh. Yes? He likes to take computers apart and put them back together. The last time he did...” Cas stops. “I don't..." Cas shakes his head. "I don't know what, but I remember being really annoyed."

“You remember! That’s great! That means Sam’s right, that your memory’s going to come back.” Dean’s grinning, and he looks like he wants to step forward, touch Cas in some way, but he holds himself back. Cas isn’t sure if that’s because Dean knows that it won’t do any good, or if there’s some other reason.

“Yes, great,” Cas says in a dull tone. “Except that it won’t do any good if I get killed in a bar fight in two days, will it?”

Dean’s face falls at this. “What if... what if you just didn’t go to the bar? Sam’s got the info on which bar it is, and you can just avoid it, and not get killed. Then you can hang around until we get this whole thing figured out. If Ash and Sam can’t figure it out, then they’ll ask someone else, maybe Ruby,” here Dean makes a face. Another thing that Cas doesn’t know. That he should know, because it’s his memories. “Or I don’t know, even Inias or Samandriel. Those guys would love to be part of the project anyway.”

Cas tunes Dean out. It’s not that he doesn’t want to listen, because he does. He wants to be part of the plan, part of this program that Dean keeps referring to. He knows that he is part of it, but he doesn’t remember, and it feels so distant. It feels like it doesn’t belong to him.

“Dean,” Cas says, cutting Dean off. “Why don’t you...” Cas hesitates. “Why don’t you go and find out where this bar is, and...”

Dean’s already tapping something into the handheld. “Yeah, yeah. Good idea, Cas.”

“Oh, wait.” Cas asks Dean about the gasoline rationing.

Dean shrugs. “Dunno. Sammy’ll know.”

“Can you also find out Ed Miller’s car and license plate?” Cas asks.

The door’s opened behind Dean, haloing him in bright light again. “Yeah, you got it Cas.” Dean looks Cas in the eye. “Hey. We’re going to figure this out, okay?” And without waiting for Cas to respond, Dean’s gone.

* * *

 

“How’s Cas doing?” Sam asks when Dean steps out of the holographic chamber. Dean rubs his eyes.

“Okay, I guess. I think he’s a little freaked out though.” Dean hops up onto the counter across from Sam’s workstation. “But can you blame ‘im?”

Sam hums a response, half an ear on Dean. He’s watching the calculations scroll by on his computer. With a frown, he pauses them and moves the cursor back a few lines. “Dean,” Sam begins. “I’m really not sure we can get him out of there.”

“If there’s anyone who can do it, dude, it’s you.” Dean slams his hand on the counter to emphasize his point. “You’re the one who designed this whole thing, anyway.”

“No, Dean. We did. The three of us. It took the three of us, and now we’re a man down, and I’m just not...” Sam’s shoulders slump as he pushes away from the desk.

“Don’t you dare finish that sentence, Sammy.” Dean hops down and points a finger at Sam. “Don’t you dare. We’re getting him back.” Dean turns on his heel and storms out of the room before Sam can respond. Sam thinks he hears Dean mutter, “We have to get him back.”

Sam shakes his head, returning his attention to the screen before him. Since Cas stepped into the device and shot himself back in time, Dean’s been a wreck. He hasn’t been sleeping very much, and his drinking has ratcheted up several notches.

Dean hasn’t been like this since Mom died.

But even then, he hadn’t quite been this... intense.

Sam doesn’t want to spend too much time thinking about Dean and his relationship - realized or not - with Cas. And he doesn’t want to let Dean down.

The numbers that had caught his attention a moment ago still look off to him, so he goes back up a few lines before and works through them. He’ll go through every line of code in this thing if he has to, just to bring Cas back.

* * *

 

Dean doesn’t throw the handheld that allows him to connect with Cas, but it’s a near thing. Instead, he picks up a paperback that’s face down on the table. It hits the wall with a satisfying thwack. Dean walks over to the fallen book and grabs it, meaning to throw it again, when he realizes it’s Cas’s book.

Cas must have been reading it before he’d decided to...

“Dammit, Cas,” Dean says to the book. “What the hell were you thinking?” If Sam catches him talking to himself, he’d probably laugh his ass off, but right now Dean doesn’t give two shits about what anyone thinks about him. Cas is lost, and not the kind of lost where it’ll be easy to get him back.

What Dean can’t figure out is why Cas didn’t wait for the three of them to be there when they turned the machine on. When they were all there to make sure nothing went wrong. Why’d he have to be the one who went through?

“Man, I thought we’d agreed it’d be me,” Dean mutters. He’s still talking to the book like it’s Cas. “What happened that made you change your mind? What was so damn important that...” Dean trails off, losing the energy to yell at the book when the person he really wants to yell at isn’t there.

When what he really wants to do is hold Cas, kiss him. And then yell at him.

“Dammit, Cas,” Dean repeats. He throws himself onto the sofa and opens Cas’s book. Maybe there’s something in it that might help him figure out what Cas was thinking.

* * *

 

When Dean meets back up with Cas in a couple of hours, he looks tired. His eyes are red, and the sides of his mouth are drawn down a little. Cas wants to ask if Dean’s all right, but he’s not sure he has the right to. Dean had said they were friends. But Cas doesn’t really know that for sure. His memory is more holes than anything right now.

What he does say instead is, “Did you find out about the gas thing?”

Dean squints for a minute, and Cas has a sharp stab of déjà vu. He doesn’t think that’s something Dean does normally, but Cas can’t explain why he knows that.

“What?” Dean says, oblivious to Cas’s thinking. “Oh, yeah.” Dean explains about the revolution in Iran, and how that’s had an impact on the price of oil. “And Ed’s got a Pontiac Grand Am,” Dean says, making a face. “C’mon, we’ll find the car together.”

The car’s parked across the street, and Cas eyes it dubiously. “This thing drives?”

“Not well,” Dean replies. “Go on, get in, you need to get gas today, or else you can’t for two more days.”

Cas gets into the driver’s seat and starts up the car. He pulls out of the space after much difficulty, because the car doesn’t have power steering. He grumbles the entire way down the block to the gas station, Dean hiding a smirk behind his handheld the entire way.

It takes forever to fill the car because of the line, but when they finish, Cas turns the car around and heads back. After a great deal of wrangling, Cas manages to park the car. He turns to Dean, still sitting in the passenger seat and says, “What happens if I don’t go to the bar where the fight’s supposed to be?”

Dean thinks about this for a minute. “That’s a good question. Let me find out from Sam if he has any information on what would happen if you didn’t go.” Dean activates the handheld. “Cas, we’re gonna get you back home, you know that, right?”

Cas tilts his head. “Yeah, you’ve said. I know.” Cas moves his hand in an aborted attempt to pat Dean on the arm, but he stops himself. Dean doesn’t seem to notice, stepping through the portal and leaving Cas alone in the car.

Cas sighs and gets out, slamming the door a little too hard, getting some satisfaction from the loud, metallic bang that echoes down the street.

When Sadie gets home from work that evening, Cas has had the chance to familiarize himself a bit more with current events, leafing through the local paper. Other than the brief sojourn to get gas in the car, it had been a quiet afternoon, and he’s almost relieved when Sadie’s keys rattle in the lock.

She leans in and he steels himself for her kiss. It’s brief, and he’s surrounded by the aroma of cigarettes and chewing gum. He gives her a tentative smile when she pulls away.

“I got gas for the car,” he says, for lack of anything else.

“Hm? Oh, great, thanks.” Sadie goes into the bedroom and changes, carrying on the conversation while he’s still in the kitchen. She raises her voice. “I thought we could go out this weekend. Maybe to the Roadhouse. We haven’t been in a while.”

Cas stiffens. Dean hadn’t mentioned the name of the bar, but the Roadhouse sounds like the kind of name that a bar would have. Wishing that he’d had a chance to talk to Dean about whether going or not made a difference in Ed’s future, Cas says, “What about trying someplace new?”

Sadie pokes her head around the edge of the door to the bedroom. “I guess? It’s been so long, thought it might be nice to go to a familiar place. See if any of the old gang are there.”

* * *

Cas goes to Ed’s work the next day. Ed works in a factory, moving boxes. It’s monotonous, difficult work. It’s not just lifting boxes using a forklift, but physically moving the boxes onto the lift, reorganizing and shuffling things around.

By mid-morning, Cas is exhausted. His brain whirs with all the possibilities of time travel, of mucking around with timelines - he remembers his Star Trek and the Department of Temporal Investigations. He remembers the Guardian on the Edge of Forever. You don’t change the past because you don’t know what it will do the future.

But Cas has spent some time here, getting to know Sadie and Ed and their friend Joe. He doesn’t want Sadie to have to suffer because her fiance has died. If he can do something about it... why not?

He’s musing about this, shifting boxes around when Dean appears again. He’d been gone a while this time, and Cas wonders whether time flows differently for Dean. He makes a mental note to ask later, when the prospect of Ed’s death isn’t hanging over his head like a sword of Damocles.

“Hey, Cas.”

“Hello, Dean,” Cas says quietly. The warehouse is noisy - several other workers on the other side, and the forklift beeping and its engine revving; however, no reason to actively look like he’s talking to himself.

Dean affects a leaning position. “This looks fun.”

“You wanna try?” Cas asks, his tone belligerent. He’s still tiptoeing around Dean, not sure about the nature of their relationship, and the snarkiness of the other man is a bit wearing.

Dean snorts. “Thanks, I’m good. Listen, I talked to Sam, and he crunched the numbers. If Ed doesn’t die, it doesn’t do anything catastrophic to the timeline. In fact, it helps Sadie, because without Ed’s income, Sadie has to move out, and she can’t afford another place, so she becomes homeless.” Dean consults his handheld and then says, “She gets sick next year and dies.”

Cas pauses in his box moving. “Oh.” He wipes his forehead with the back of his hand. “Then I guess we’d better make sure that Ed doesn’t get killed in that fight.” He continues moving boxes. “Sadie’s kind of insisting that we go, though.”

Dean grins. “You’ve got an edge, though.”

“I do?” Cas asks, grunting as he shifts a box.

“Yeah. You got me to watch your back.”

Cas hides his smile in the corner of the box he’s moving. “Okay.”

* * *

 

It’s not until later in the day that Cas begins to understand why Ed might get into a bar fight that would get him killed.

He’s on his break, drinking a bottle of orange juice, when two men approach him. They stand on either side of him, towering over his perch on the edge of the loading dock. Dark suits cover their large frames and their eyes are hidden behind dark glasses. Cas looks up at them, shielding his eyes from the glare of the early afternoon sun.

“Help you guys?” he asks in what he hopes is a neutral tone.

There’s nothing but the sound of their heavy breathing. Beads of sweat stand out on their faces, and they stand still as statues. Finally, one of them - the shorter of the two - says, “There’s rumors going around, Eddie.” The voice is deep and vaguely menacing, and it sends a slight shiver up and down Cas’s spine. 

“Rumors that you’re trying to organize things around here,” the man continues, his voice dripping with contempt when he frames the word, _organize_. He makes it sound dirty.

The other man chimes in. “We’ve talked about this Eddie. Company’s got no time for folks who don’t follow the rules. This ain’t no union shop, never will be.”

Something tickles at the back of Cas’s neck at this, shades of something familiar, but it’s gone before he can put his finger on it. 

One of the men leans down and, smelling of corn nuts and coffee, says in a harsh whisper, “Remember that we had this conversation, Eddie. Cuz we won’t forget.”

He stands up with a grunt and they both walk away, leaving a faint air of oil, grease and fear in their wake.

It sounds like things might not be as easy as simply avoiding the bar. Cas crumples up the plastic wrap holding the remainder of his sandwich. He’s not hungry anymore, and what he has eaten sits heavy in his stomach.

* * *

 

After another full day of moving boxes, Cas decides he never wants to see another one again. not ever. He’s completely finished with boxes, and everything he owns from now on will be cylindrical.

He mentions this to Dean, who’s hovering nearby while Cas shaves - seeing Ed’s face in the mirror is strange beyond belief - where Ed’s face dips and curves, Cas’s is more rounded, and vice versa. And the eyebrows are all wrong. Cas misses the way his left eyebrow arches up just a touch on its own.

Dean laughs about the boxes. “You can’t have everything be cylinders, man.”

“Watch me,” Cas says darkly. He rinses off the blade of the razor and wipes the sink clean. Dean just laughs again, and Cas flushes slightly, feeling a little silly about the whole thing.

But so many boxes.

“Ed, come on! If we don’t leave soon, we’re never gonna get a booth!” Sadie says from the living room. Cas sighs and takes one last look at Ed’s face in the mirror.

“Okay, let’s do this before I change my mind,” Cas says, opening the door to the bathroom. It’s not that he doesn’t want to help save someone’s - well, two someones - life, but rather that he’d prefer not to get into a bar fight if at all possible. He doesn’t have much memory, but he strongly suspects that he’s the kind of person who doesn’t generally get into fights.

Sadie’s putting the final touches of her lipstick on, using the toaster as a mirror. She smooths down Cas’s - Ed’s - collar and he takes her hand, leading her out of the apartment. He hears the whooshing sound of Dean’s portal opening and closing as they leave.

The Roadhouse is a few miles away. From the outside it doesn’t look like much, just a run down bar off the side of the road, but the lively sounds of laughter, chatter and music leak out of the doors and windows as Cas and Sadie pull up. Cas parks the car, and hurries over to the right side to hold the door open for Sadie.

She raises an eyebrow. “You’ve never done that before.”

Cas clears his throat and shrugs. “Felt like the thing to do?”

Sadie doesn’t answer, instead stepping ahead of Cas to let herself into the bar. They’re assaulted by the sounds from within - honky-tonk music playing on the jukebox and loud conversations from every angle. Sadie searches the walls, looking for a booth, and finds the last one available, in the back corner. She grabs Cas’s - Ed’s - hand and makes for the booth at the same time that another couple just to their right does the same thing.

Sadie’s long stride gets them to the booth more quickly, and she slides in, gesturing to Cas to sit opposite. The other couple give Cas and Sadie dirty looks, but opt to sit at one of the tables toward the center of the room. Sadie shoots a smug look at their retreating backs.

“What can I get ya?” the waitress, a pretty young blonde, asks.

“How about a pitcher of what’s on draft?” Sadie says. “Whichever, I don’t care.”

The waitress nods and turns back to the bar with their order. Cas smiles at Sadie, but keeps his eyes roaming over the entire bar, looking for someone who might look like one of the men from the previous day. Everyone is having a good time, focused on their friends and dates, not throwing glances over their shoulders at anyone. In fact, Cas is the only one whose attention is outward, away from his companion. He turns back to face Sadie, an apology on his lips, but he sees it’s not necessary. She’s craning her neck too, looking around the room for someone as well.

In a few minutes, it becomes clear. She raises her hand in greeting, a broad grin on her face. Cas looks to see who she’s waving at, and sees Joe and another man that he doesn’t recognize. He shoots a questioning glance at Sadie.

“I asked Joe and Chris to join us. I hope you don’t mind,” Sadie says. She looks like she’s afraid that Ed will mind, very much indeed, and Cas puzzles over that while he shakes his head no. The relief on Sadie’s face is palpable, the worried crease between her brows fading away.

Joe and Chris slide into the booth, Chris next to Cas and Joe next to Sadie. Joe flashes a bright smile at Cas and kisses Sadie on the cheek. “Hey sis. Thanks for asking us. Ed, you remember my friend, Chris?” Joe nods at Chris, who holds out a hand to Cas. Cas takes the proffered hand, shaking it. Chris looks vaguely satisfied at that, which Cas can't quite figure out. 

Their waitress returns to the table with their pitcher of beer before Cas can ask about it, though, and after she puts the beer and glasses on the table, goes back to the bar for two more glasses.

They talk for a little bit, small talk, really, nothing too serious, until Joe's friend Chris turns so he's facing Cas and his back is to the rest of the bar. He leans forward and says in a conspiratorial manner, "Joe tells me you're interested in joining."

Alarm zips through Cas like a bolt. There's no question that Chris is referring to joining a union, given that Joe's eyes dart around the room, watching like a hawk. No one in the room looks remotely like the two men who'd accosted him at work, which doesn't make Cas feel any better about having this conversation in public.

Sadie's eyes widen as she glances between her brother and Cas. "Ed?" 

Cas wants to turn to her and tell her it will be okay. That he's not going to do something foolish, but he thinks back to his days at work at the box factory, where the windows were painted shut and the doors remained closed all day, making the entire warehouse stifling hot. Where there wasn't a fire extinguisher to be found, and where Ed's time sheet indicated 6 day work weeks of 12 plus hour shifts.

Instead, Cas murmurs, "Sadie," and her shoulders slump like she knows what that means. Cas nods at Joe. "How can we organize the whole factory?"

Cas doesn't remember much about himself, but he thinks that he is the kind of person who would do this. Who would stand up for the little guy and help out those less fortunate than himself. Ed needs the job, true, but Sadie works too, and the apartment they have isn't that large. Their rent isn't too high, and Cas knows, because Dean told him (via Sam, of course) that this recent oil shortage is only a brief spike, and then gas prices will come down again soon. 

Besides, Ed got killed in a bar fight. Cas can stop Ed from getting killed, and keep him alive long enough to get the union up and running.

Both Joe and Chris light up, hunching forward even closer to talk to Cas. 

Before they can continue their conversation, a meaty paw lands heavily on Cas's shoulder and Cas feels himself being dragged backward, up out of their booth. Dressed much more casually than yesterday, one of the goons who'd confronted Cas has a strong grip. His thumb presses painfully into Cas's clavicle, twisting Cas so he's forced to walk ahead of the larger man out of the Roadhouse.

Cas can hear Chris and Joe scrambling up out of the booth, the dismayed squawks of Sadie, both of which fade underneath the roar that fills his ears. His pulse throbs in his temples and his jaw tightens, and Cas realizes he is _pissed_. He doesn't know when he's ever been this angry, but he's so angry that his vision has tunneled down to the path just in front of him. He whirls around the moment they're out of the Roadhouse, a move that the other man isn't expecting. He recovers quickly though, aiming a punch at Cas's midriff.

Cas leaps out of the way, nimble despite the fact that his muscles are sore from moving boxes, and he swings his arm out, clipping the side of the other man's head. The shock of the hit reverberates up his arm, jarring his teeth together, and before he can recover, the larger man is on him, fists moving faster than Cas would have though possible. 

The rest of the fight is a blur, though he's aware of when Joe and Chris join him in the parking lot, Chris standing between Cas and his assailant, arms spread wide to keep them apart. Sadie stands in the entrance to the Roadhouse, talking with the owner, arms gesticulating wildly. Cas leans over, breathing heavily while Joe and Chris restrain the other man, pulling him back.

"Looks like I missed the fight," Dean's voice comes from behind Cas. He looks over his shoulder and huffs a laugh.

"Not like you could have helped," he murmurs. 

Dean gives a one-armed shrug and grins. "You get to have all the fun."

Cas just rolls his eyes. The wail of a police siren comes closer and closer until after a moment, a cop pulls into the parking lot and shrieks to a halt fifteen feet from where Cas stands. The cop leaps from the car, mirrored aviators hanging at the end of his nose, just above a large mustache that's just this side of having handle bars.

The policeman lopes over to where Chris and Joe have Cas's attacker restrained, and he whips out a notebook. He asks a few terse questions that Cas can't quite hear, and then comes over to talk to Cas.

By this time, Cas leans against the car while Sadie patches up the scrape on his cheek. It’s minor, but she’s enjoying fussing over him. Cas nods at the cop, but before the cop can start asking questions, Cas is surrounded by a bright light that blinds him.

He blinks.

And then he blinks again, because he’s not in the parking lot anymore, now he’s in a kitchen, and...

“THIS IS SO UNFAIR! I HATE YOU MOM!!” a teenaged girl with long, curly dark hair says, stomping her foot. She storms out of the kitchen and Cas can hear her stomping up the stairs. A door slams. Cas looks around the room to see who the girl could have been talking to, but he’s the only one in the room. He turns around and catches a glimpse of his face in the microwave.

Looks like he’s Mom. “Oh, shit.”


	2. 1985

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wasn't sure how to tag this, but Cas leaps into a woman in this chapter. He's still himself, but he's trapped in her body and has to live her life for a little while. If that's something that triggers you, you can skip ahead to the next chapter (which will have its own issues, but I'll warn for those, promise.)

“Sam!” Dean bursts through the doorway. “Where the hell is he?”

“I don’t know, hang on!” Sam types furiously, swinging between two laptops and a console, trying to figure out where Cas went. Dean hovers behind him, breathing over his shoulder like a dragon.

“I thought he would come back!” Dean growls.

“Dean,” Sam says, shoving his brother out of the way. “I can’t work with you right here. I don’t know why he didn’t come back. We’ll find him. Just. Just go over there and stay out of my way, okay?”

Dean mutters to himself, but does as Sam asks, standing off to one side. He folds his arms over his chest and glares at Sam, silently urging him to move faster.

Dean doesn't know how long it takes Sam, but finally, Sam exclaims, "Got him!"

Dean pushes off the wall. "Where? When?" He grabs the handheld, ready to go as soon as he knows where he's headed.

Sam's face twists, and a curious expression settles there. "Um. Chicago, 1985. But Dean..."

Before Sam can say anything else, Dean's tapping information into the handheld and he's stepping through the portal.

Sam snorts, and then dissolves into laughter. "Man I wish I could see the expression on his face when he sees."

* * *

 

**1985**  

Cas takes a few minutes getting acquainted with the new location. He's not sure about the when, but it looks like he's in a suburban area, in a relatively small house. It's tidy and well-organized, with a small kitchen/dinette and living room on the first floor. On the second floor there's a bathroom and the master bedroom, and a closed door, which Cas assumes belongs to the room of the girl who'd yelled at him earlier.

He finds a purse, and with a small amount of guilt, rifles through it until he finds a wallet. Inside the wallet he finds an Illinois driver's license. "Gayle Martin," Cas reads. The wallet has a ten dollar bill and a few crumpled ones, car registration and insurance. Other than a library card, there's nothing else in the wallet. Cas puts the wallet back into the purse and returns to the kitchen. He's about to start cleaning up when he hears the sound that usually accompanies Dean's arrival. He turns around.

Dean steps through the portal, looking a little wild-eyed. "Cas!" his eyes search the room, glossing over Cas at first, and then coming back to rest on him. "Cas?" Dean says again, uncertain. He takes a hesitant step forward.

"Hello, Dean." Cas spreads his arms and looks down at himself. For the first time, he realizes he's wearing a skirt and blouse. The blouse has enormous shoulder pads, making his figure look more like a linebacker than anything else.

Dean screws up his nose like he's going to sneeze. "Cas, are you... are you a woman?"

Cas nods. "It would seem so. My name is Gayle."

Dean bursts into laughter. "Gayle? Oh my god. That's priceless." Dean roars with laughter, bent nearly double with the force of it. He's not just laughing because seeing Cas in a bright red blouse is funny, but also because he's relieved. He's relieved that they found Cas again, and that he seems to be okay.

Cas waits out Dean's reaction. When Dean's laughter trails off, Cas adopts a mild tone. "I have a theory."

Dean wipes the corner of his eye. "Yeah?"

Cas nods. He's been thinking about it ever since he arrived in this house, this time. He left just after changing the last person's fate. There's no reason to think that he won't change times if he does it again. He explains his theory to Dean, who nods his head as he listens.

"Could be. I'll run it by Sammy. I'll see what this Gayle's story is too."

Cas gives Dean Gayle's last name. "She has a daughter. Can you find out her name? She's angry with her mom right now."

"You got it, Cas." Dean hesitates before stepping back through the portal. "You look good in that color lipstick, Cas." He chortles to himself as the doorway closes. Cas glares at the spot where Dean had stood, thinking about a variety of ways he could exact revenge.

None of them are particularly satisfactory.

Instead of waiting around, Cas cleans up the kitchen. It looks like it’s late afternoon, so he probably needs to think about getting dinner ready. He has no idea whether that’s the right thing to do, but at this point, he’s flying by the seat of his pants - erm, skirt - and there’s no indication that dinner wasn’t in the plans.

After scrounging through the fridge, he finds some leftover chicken and spinach. Noodles in the cupboard round out a meal of sorts, and he puts all the ingredients on the counter. He loses himself in the work, cutting up the chicken into bite sized pieces while the water boils for the pasta. Hanging on the door of one of the cupboards is an apron, the front of which has a small figure with a red cape flying behind her. It says “Super Mom”. Cas puts it on, despite the fact that he’s sure he’s anything but super when it comes to being a mom. He’s been thrust into the role, so he’ll do the best he can.

As he cooks, he wonders about his real life before this whole adventure began. Was he married? Did he have kids of his own? When he looks down at himself, he sees his true body, masculine hands (wearing pale pink nail polish, though), a broad chest and muscular legs. He isn’t wearing any jewelry, although he knows that lots of men don’t wearing wedding rings. Cas doesn’t assume that means he’s unmarried or unattached, but on further reflection, he thinks that maybe he’s at least not married. He doesn’t remember much, but he figures that he’s not the kind of person to be married and not wear a ring. It strikes him as being kind of douche-y.

He rolls the word “douche-y” around in his mind for a minute. It’s not quite something he thinks he’d say, not really, but it was there, within reach, and it described his feelings pretty accurately, he thinks. He wonders where he got it from? It might be the kind of thing that Dean says.

It’s weird, this trying to get to know himself. He has no idea if the way he’s acting and responding to things right now is part of the way he normally behaves. He doesn’t know if his feelings about wedding rings and fairness to others are the kinds of things that Cas does. He doesn’t think it’s remnants of Ed, nor does he think it’s the influence of Gayle.

He sighs and rubs his eyes. All of this is giving him a headache. What he’d like to do is sit down with Dean, the only person who is his link to his “real” self, and pepper him with questions. But he’s been unable to even get more than a few questions out before something’s happened, or Dean’s had to go back to... wherever the door leads.

“You’re cooking dinner?” It’s the teenager, leaning against the door jam, arms folded across her chest. Her eyes are red and puffy.

“Yeah. You want to.” Cas hesitates. “You want to set the table?”

The girl makes a face, but pushes off the wall and starts pulling dishes out of one of the cupboards. They work in silence, and when she’s finished setting the table, she plops down in one of the chairs and stares at Cas again.

“It’s still not --”

Cas holds up a hand. “How about we talk about this after dinner?” Probably the wrong thing to say, but he doesn’t want to continue an argument that he came in on the middle of, especially when he still has no idea what this girl’s name is.

She looks like she’s going to protest, but, to his surprise, she shuts her mouth with a snap and nods.

“Okay.”

Cas nods and smiles, hoping to soften the harshness of his words. He serves up the food, and hands one plate to the girl. She sniffs it and makes a "doesn't seem too bad" face. As she's putting it down at her place at the table, Dean appears through the portal.

"Jane," he says. "Her name is Jane." Cas tilts his chin down to show he's heard. He serves himself a plate and sits at the table next to the girl.

They eat in silence for a few minutes, until Jane says, “This isn’t bad.”

Cas huffs a soft laugh, shoveling a forkful of food into his mouth. It’s awkward, this sitting at a dinner table with someone he’s just met. Jane eats quickly, barely pausing between mouthfuls, as if it’s a race to see who finishes first.

“Dude, what’d you do to piss her off? You’ve only been here like an hour,” Dean says. He’s sitting on the countertop next to the stove watching the proceedings. Cas tries not to react, but his eyebrows give the faintest of twitches. Jane is so focused on her meal that she doesn’t notice.

“Oh, I get it, so you’re fighting with your daughter,” Dean sniggers, “and you’re taking your anger out on me. Real nice, Cas.”

“Would you like seconds?” Cas asks Jane, pointedly ignoring Dean. Jane looks up, startled, but shakes her head. Cas stands, grabbing their plates, which he puts down on the counter right in the middle of what look’s like Dean’s lap. He glares at Dean, who smirks back. Dean’s enjoying himself a little too much.

“Mom, can we talk...” Jane asks.

Cas looks at the dishes pointedly, and then the sink. Jane rolls her eyes, but stands up, huffing. “Fine,” she says. She washes the dishes in a desultory manner while Cas puts away the leftovers.

“Now can we talk?” Jane asks again, and Cas nods. They sit at the table, next to each other.

“Tell me,” Cas says, figuring that it’s best to go with saying the least.

Jane screws up her face, but inhales and says all in a rush, “I really want to go to prom with Joey, and I know that he’s 18 and I’m only 15, but he really loves me, and we could have so much fun...” Jane continues with taking a breath. Cas catches Dean out of the corner of his eye, shaking his head.

“No way does that guy really love this girl,” he says with a frown. He doesn’t elaborate though, so Cas is left to wonder what Dean isn’t saying. Jane winds down after a minute and looks at Cas hopefully.

“Mom?”

Cas takes in a long deep breath and then lets it go slowly. He raises an eyebrow.

“And when you asked earlier, what did I tell you?” He uses a tone he remembers his mother using - something else that he has pulled out of his swiss-cheese memory - hoping that Jane will interpret this as a reminder rather than an admission of ignorance on his part.

He lucks out. Jane’s lower lip wobbles a bit as she says, “You told me I couldn’t go because I was too young. But I’m not! I’m not too young, and when it’s time for prom I’ll be 16, and ...”

“Jane.”

Jane stands up and stomps her foot. “This is SO UNFAIR. You’re just jealous because I have a boyfriend and you don’t! You want me to be as miserable as you are!” She glares at Cas for a moment and then clomps out of the room. Again.

Cas turns to Dean. “This is really bad.”

Dean snorts. “You’re telling me. It gets worse, Cas. She runs away Friday night.”

Cas heaves a sigh. He’s not prepared to deal with this. “And I suppose the outcome of that is pretty awful.” The look on Dean’s face tells Cas the answer, and he wants to throw things across the room. “Got any suggestions?” he asks after a moment. His shoulders slump.

Dean shakes his head slowly. “I’m not a parent, Cas, I can’t help.”

Something niggles at the back of Cas’s mind, a face of a woman with short, cropped dark hair. She’s pretty, and tall, with a no nonsense stance. Her name is just on the tip of his tongue, but he can’t pull it out of his memory. “What about...” he snaps his fingers a couple of times, trying to jog his memory. He raises his hand and holds it perpendicular to his face at about chin level.

Dean peers at him for a long moment, unclear on what Cas is trying to say. He shakes his head, shrugging his shoulders at the same time.

“Tall, dark hair. Pretty eyes... I think she’s...”

Comprehension dawns of Dean’s face. “Jody! Man, you remember her, but not me?” He tries not to look hurt at this.

Cas scowls. “I don’t remember her, just her face, and that I think she has kids?”

“Had. But she’s awesome. I’ll ask her, yeah. And Cas, that apron is a great look on you.” Dean doesn’t even bother ducking when Cas throws one of the pillows on the couch at him. It sails through Dean’s holographic projection and lands on the floor. Dean still beats a hasty retreat though, stepping through the portal back to the lab before Cas can say anything else.

For his part, Cas rubs the back of his neck. The strap of the apron catches beneath his fingers, and he pulls it over his head, tossing it on the couch in irritation. The resulting dull thump of cloth on cloth is less than satisfactory.

Mumbling to himself about how he was an idiot for getting himself into this predicament, he snatches the apron off the couch and hangs it back on its hook in the kitchen. He, too, trudges up the stairs. He pauses outside of Jane’s room, and knocks.

“Go away!” Jane yells from inside. She turns her music up louder, the lyrics now shouting something about ruling the world. Cas knocks again, and Jane responds by turning the music up even more.

Cas rolls his eyes. He turns the doorknob, half expecting it to be locked, but it isn’t. Music assaults his ears now that the door’s open, and Jane’s lying on her bed, arms folded across her chest. He peers at the stereo, locates the volume and turns it down low enough so Jane can hear him.

“I just wanted to say good night,” he says in a gentle tone.

Jane sniffs. “Well, fine. You’ve said good night, now get out.”

Cas stares at Jane for a long moment before stepping back into the hall. He ignores Jane when she yells, “And close my door!” at his retreating back.

* * *

 

If Cas had harbored any illusions that a night’s sleep would clear up any disagreements between Jane and her mother, he was sorely mistaken. Jane brushes past him in the kitchen, a backpack hanging off one shoulder. She pulls open the door and lets it bang against the wall before slamming it shut behind her again.

He contemplates going after her, but he’s got to get to work - some snooping around in Gayle’s room last night netted him the information he’d need to make sure she doesn’t lose her job - so he finishes up his coffee and breakfast.

Dean appears next to him in the car as he’s pulling out of the driveway on his way to work.

“Morning,” Dean says, flashing a wide grin.

“Hello, Dean,” Cas replies, flipping the turn signal on.

They drive in silence for a few minutes, and then Dean says, “I talked to Jody. She gave me some pointers to pass along.”

Cas nods. “Good. That’s good.”

“She says you need to meet this guy, if the mom hasn’t already.” Dean looks down at his handheld, like he’d taken notes. “And that you should keep firm if you think something’s off about the guy.”

“Okay. But if Jane runs away...”

“Yeah, I know. But I think that I can help you find her if it comes to that.” Dean shifts a little bit in the seat. “We got this.”

Cas gives a tentative half smile. “Good.” He hesitates, but then asks the question that’s been buzzing around his head since yesterday. “Dean, am I married?”

A curious expression flits across Dean’s face, but a blank mask replaces it almost immediately. He clears his throat and says, “No. Why?”

“I was wondering. If I’d left someone behind when I...” Cas waves his hand to encompass the car, the fact that it’s 1985, the holographic Dean sitting next to him.

Dean doesn’t respond for a full minute, his jaw working a bit as he takes in what Cas has said. Cas concentrates on driving, finding his way through this strange town that’s his home, at least for the next few days.

“No, Cas. You’re not married. And you just up and decided to jump in without thinking, which is why you’re in this mess,” Dean says, his voice sharp and brittle.

“Why did I...”

“I don’t know, Cas. Why did you? Why’d you go and do something so monumentally stupid that it could have gotten you killed? What the hell were you trying to prove? Were you trying to get away from some--” Dean breaks off. “You know what, I’m going to go and...” he doesn’t finish the sentence, gone through the portal before Cas even has a chance to process what’s just happened.

* * *

 

“Stupid assbutt,” Dean mutters as he stalks through the lab.

“What’s that, Dean?” Sam asks, looking up from the computer. He’s got a line on a way to bring Cas back to the present - maybe - but the thundercloud over Dean’s head’s threatening to derail Sam’s progress. When Dean gets like this, it can be hard to concentrate.

Dean shoves aside a pile of papers and hops up onto the counter. He lets his boots fall back on the lower cabinet doors with a rhythmic thud. “Nothing,” he says, sullen. He’s about ten seconds away from a full on pout. He only manages to sit still long enough for Sam to open his mouth to ask something else. Dean jumps off the counter. “I’m gonna go hit things for a bit. You making any progress?”

“Yeah, I think I’ve got--”

“Good. That’s. Good.”

Sam huffs a sigh and returns back to the computer. He's got more important things to worry about than his brother's issues. He can’t quite get a handle on one particular line of code.

* * *

 

Dean mutters to himself about what an ass Cas is all the way down to the gym. It’s a space they’d built sort of ad hoc over the last nine months or so. It’d started when Dean’d needed a way to vent his frustrations, so he’d gone and gotten one of those punching bags that you hang from the ceiling. Then Sam brought in a treadmill, and Cas found a stationary bike. They put a tv up on one wall and they were off. Most of the time they kept to their preferred method of exercise - Dean would occasionally punch the shit out of the bag until sweat poured down his face and into his eyes. Sam’s routine is much more regular - he runs on the treadmill every day, somewhere between five and ten miles each time. Cas usually switches between running and using the bike. He makes a face when Dean asks him to hold the bag for him, but he does it anyway, riling Dean up and making him hit harder and harder until he’s exhausted.

Dean doesn’t have Cas here to egg him on, but he’s so frustrated with the whole situation that he doesn’t need the extra help. He punches at the bag again and again, reveling in the way the force rebounds up his arm and into his shoulders. He switches back and forth between his left and right side until his arms feel like jelly and he’s hot from head to toe. He gives the bag one last punch, ignoring the small, satisfied feeling he gets when he sees Cas’s stupid face in his mind’s eye.

Sometimes he wants to punch Cas. A lot. And this is definitely one of those times.

He stumbles upstairs and into the bathroom. After he drops his sweat-sodden clothes into a soiled heap on the floor, he steps into the shower and turns on the water as hot as he can stand it. He stands under the water, his head bowed, for several long moments. His skin throbs in time with his heart, which still beats a rapid tattoo beneath his chest. The adrenaline from his workout’s thrums in his veins.

He slowly shampoos his hair and rinses it, scrubbing his head extra hard, just to feel the sensation, something different than what he’s been feeling the last few days. The low level of anxiety about Cas finally bubbled over, but now he needs to tamp it back down again, get it under control. He’s no good to Sam or Cas like this, and he needs to be on top of his game.

He can’t let Cas get stuck in the past.

* * *

 

Cas does not like working in an office. He especially doesn’t like working in this office, where the boss, an oily man named Zachariah, calls him sweetheart and stares just a touch too long at his - well, Gayle’s - breasts. Cas doesn’t like the monotony of typing letter after letter, the sharp sear of all the little paper cuts he gets from filing, and he does not like having to be falsely polite to everyone when he has to be at the receptionist desk at lunch time.

By the end of the day, he’s got a run in his stockings, and his feet are killing him. Who the fuck ever thought that high heels were a good idea anyway? He sags into the driver’s seat of the car and rests his head on the back of the seat. The car smells slightly of gasoline and old socks, a heady combination that makes his nose twitch and sets his blood throbbing in his temples.

He hopes that wherever Gayle Martin is right now, she’s enjoying a well-deserved rest, because her life is not easy.

Cas tips a salute in an upward direction, thinking kind thoughts about this woman whose life he’s borrowed for the time being, and then he starts up the car. He’s about to put the car into gear when there’s a tapping on his window. He scowls when he sees Zachariah grinning at him from the other side.

Cas leans forward and rotates the window crank to lower it. It’d taken him a good five minutes in the car that morning to figure out how to lower the windows, and even then Dean had had to tell him about the crank.

“Yes?” Cas asks, mustering up as much politeness as he can. He gives a tired smile.

“Oh Gayle, good, I’m glad I caught you. Listen, I need another set of letters typed up, and they have to go out tonight.” He opens the door as he’s asking, and grasps at Cas’s elbow.

“Uh,” Cas says. “I have to get home for my daughter...” and that will never not be weird coming out of his mouth. But if the scene last night showed him anything, it’s that while he’s not really Jane’s mother, he’s the closest thing she has right now, and she needs him.

But Zachariah’s hand tightens its grip on Cas’s elbow and he starts to pull.

“She’s a teenager, she’ll be fine! I really need you,” he says.

Cas sighs. He can get Gayle fired, he’s here trying to fix things, not fuck them up. But he’d love nothing more than to punch this guy in the face. He gets a quick flash of memory, holding onto a punching bag while Dean, red faced and sweaty, hits it with increasing power. Cas very much wants to do that to Zachariah.

Instead, he reaches over and turns off the ignition and undoes his seatbelt. Zachariah grins again, a feral thing, and holds the door open for Cas. His back twitches as he feels Zachariah’s hand get close, so he hurries ahead into the building. He’ll call Jane when he gets to Gayle’s desk.

There’s no answer at home, though, and he doesn’t know of any other way to get in touch with Jane. He knows that this is long before the days of cell phones, so he won’t be able to talk to her that way. He scrubs his eyes. The day just gets better and better.

* * *

 

By the time he gets back to Gayle’s home, he’s certain that he never, ever wants to see a typewriter again as long as he lives. More than that, though, was the evening spent in proximity to Gayle’s handsy boss. Zachariah has no sense of personal space, sitting on the edge of Gayle’s desk while Cas tries to concentrate on the letters that just had to be typed up that very evening. Cas strongly suspects that the letters didn’t need to be typed up at all, but he’s trying to keep Gayle employed, so he kept his mouth shut.

He’s grateful that Zachariah doesn’t try to do anything other than be too far into Cas’s personal space, and he’s even more grateful when Zachariah finally pronounces himself satisfied with their work. He doesn’t say anything about paying Gayle for the extra work, and Cas makes a note to ask about it in the morning.

The house is dark when he gets there, except for one lamp up in Jane’s room. Cas exhales in relief, glad to know that Jane hasn’t decided to run away just yet. Dean had said that it would be Friday, but after the fight from last night, Cas isn’t taking anything for granted.

Jane’s door is ajar, the light from her desk lamp spilling out into the hallway. Cas taps on the door lightly, and Jane, who’s bent over a textbook looks up. She looks wary, but lifts her chin in an invitation for Cas to come inside.

“You want some ice cream?” Cas asks. He’d picked up some chocolate on the way home.

Jane’s face lights up, and Cas feels the knots in his stomach ease. 

“Yeah, that’d be good. Let me just finish this page, and I’ll be down,” Jane replies. 

Cas nods and hesitates only slightly before leaning over and kissing the top of Jane’s head. Feeling his cheeks warm, he hurries out of the room and back downstairs.

Jane joins him in a few minutes, and he dishes out the ice cream into the bright blue bowls from the cabinet. They eat in a silence punctuated by the clink of their spoons on the side of the bowl. When they both finish, Jane washes the bowls and puts them in the dish rack to dry. She gives Cas a brief squeeze and says, “Thanks, Mom,” before heading back up to her room.

It’s not perfect, but it’s something.

* * *

 

In the middle of a long night of tossing and turning, Dean’s wakened by Sam yelling something from the lab. He leaps out of bed and stumbles over his jeans before dashing out to see what the ruckus is.

“What, what?” Dean’s breathless. “What is it, Sam?”

“Dude, you gotta... You gotta go talk to Cas like now. I don’t know what he did, but the timeline’s shifted up and Jane’s gonna run away tonight, not Friday like we said initially.”

“Shit, shit, shit,” Dean says as he runs back to his room. He throws on his jeans and the closest t-shirt he can find. He shoves his feet into his boots, grimacing when he realizes he’s barefoot, but there’s no time to worry about it. He grabs the handheld and rushes back to the lab where Sam’s setting up the holographic emitter.

“Come on, Sam, come on,” Dean says under his breath, urging his brother on. Sam flaps his hand in annoyance over his shoulder.

“Ah! Ok, go, go, you’re good to go,” Sam says after a minute of fiddling with the computer. Dean doesn’t need any additional encouragement, stepping inside.

Wherever he ends up, it’s dark, and it takes his eyes a minute to adjust. He realizes he’s outside, and he’s not alone. Just ahead of him, getting ready to head across a field lit by the light of a new moon is Jane.

“Dammit,” Dean says. “Jane! Jane!” he shouts, before remembering that there’s no way she can hear him. 

“Fuck.” He fiddles with the handheld device for a second, and reorients himself so he’s back at the the Martin house, in Gayle’s bedroom. Cas’s dark hair peeks out from under the covers.

“Cas!” Dean shouts.

Cas sits upright, his eyes wide in the gloom, lit only by the streetlight coming in through the blinds.

“What? What?” Cas says, looking around.

“Cas, get up, come on man, you gotta get up.” Dean wants to pull Cas out of the bed, he wants to throw clothing at Cas, anything to get his friend moving, but he can't, he's incorporeal. His hands pass through everything he tries to grab for. 

“Fuck!” He shouts in frustration. “Cas, you gotta get up, Jane ran away!”

“But it’s not Friday,” Cas says, bewildered.

“I know, man, but she did anyway. Just get up!”

Cas groans and swings his legs over the side of the bed. His nightgown rides up a bit with the motion, but he ignores it. He moves slowly, oh so slowly, and Dean’s vibrating with energy beside him, trying to get Cas to move more quickly. He’s muttering “Come on, come on,” under his breath.

Cas catches on to the urgency as he wakes, and soon enough, he’s pulling a sweater on over his nightgown, and yanking up the skirt he’d worn earlier. He flips on a light and blinks owlishly before he locates his keys and purse.

“Okay, where are we going?” Cas asks, his voice still rough with sleep.

“Hang on,” Dean says. He taps on the handheld and disappears for a moment. He reappears as suddenly as he’d gone and says, “Across town - by the park. I’ll direct you. Just. Hurry!”

Cas drives well above the speed limit. Fully awake and with Dean egging him on, he rushes through stale green and burning yellow lights until they’re at the park where Dean had seen Jane. Cas parks haphazardly and leaps out of the car. 

“Jane!” he shouts, though he’s not sure that Jane’s within hearing range. “Which direction?” he asks Dean.

“That way,” Dean says, pointing to the left end of the park, where the park turns into a small copse of trees leading into a dense forest.

Cas curses. “Of course.” 

He jogs off in that direction, and Dean follows. They alternate calling for Jane, even though Dean knows it won’t do any good for him to, but there’s no answering call from Jane.

Cas stumbles a few times, and after the third spill, he turns back to the car. A search of the glove compartment reveals nothing useful, but the trunk holds a small flashlight with a working battery. He hopes that it lasts long enough for them to find Jane.

“Cas! I found her! Over here!” Dean’s yelling, waving his handheld. The thing glows in the darkness, a beacon, and Cas follows it across the field. Dean’s standing in a small copse of trees, and in the center...

Cas heaves a sigh of relief. Jane’s sitting on the ground, her knees hugged to her chest.

“Jane,” Cas says, stepping forward. He tilts the flashlight upwards so it doesn’t blind her. Jane’s head jerks up and her mouth drops in an ‘o’ of surprise.

“Mom? What are you doing here?” Jane asks, and she sounds more bewildered than angry, so Cas steps closer and sinks to his knees next to her.

“I uh,” he pauses, because it’s not like he can say that his holographic friend from the future told him where to find her. “I woke up and you were gone. I was worried.” 

He’s not sure what to do with his hands, so he wipes them on his skirt and just waits for Jane. He thinks it would be a good idea to take her into his arms, but he doesn’t feel comfortable doing that; he’s only known her for two days.

Jane inhales a shuddery breath, but doesn’t speak. They sit in silence for several awkward moments, Jane looking everywhere but at Cas. 

Finally, she says in a small voice, “I was gonna run away.”

“Yeah,” Cas says, for lack of anything better.

“I was going away, and it was going to be awesome. Off by myself, without you telling me what to do.” Jane picks at the beginnings of a hole in the knee of her jeans. “But you’re here. Are you going to tell me I have to come home?”

Pleased that she’s still thinking of the tiny house as “home”, Cas says, “Yes. But not until you tell me why you ran away.” He rearranges himself so he’s sitting cross-legged on the ground perpendicular to Jane. He’s close enough that he can feel some of her warmth, but not so close that they’re touching. He stays just outside her protective bubble.

“I just. You were so nice. You gave me ice cream and you listened to me, for once, and I just kept thinking that it wouldn’t last. That we’d fight about something again, and it would be just awful and I couldn’t. I know that you think you’re protecting me, but you’re not, you’re just... you’re being too overprotective, Mom.”

Cas doesn’t agree, but he lets Jane continue on in this vein until she winds down. Dean stands off to the side, scowling down at the teenager, his arms folded over his chest. Jane’s not crying, it’s not a tantrum. If anything, she’s been calm and self-assured since they got here.

Dean pipes up. “Tell her that’s your job.” Cas shoots him a questioning look, confused about what he means. “Tell her it’s your job to be overprotective. That, uh, that’s what moms do.”

Understanding dawns on Cas’s face and he does as Dean suggests. Jane’s face twists for a moment, and then she huffs a laugh and nods.

“Tell her...” Dean says. “Tell her that you’re going to try, but that she has to understand...”

Cas is nodding though, seeing where Dean’s going with this. He shifts so all his attention is focused on Jane. “Listen, Jane. I’m going to try. I’ll get it wrong, I’m sure, and I’ll be too overprotective, but... You have to try too. You have to get that sometimes when I say you can’t do something, it’s for a valid reason.” Cas thinks he hears the echo of a long buried memory, a similar conversation with his father. Not quite the same, as Cas never tried to run away. Cas feels warmth in his gut as he realizes that he’s remembered a bit more about himself. Pleased that it’s coming back, albeit slowly, he smiles.

Jane catches the look and smiles back, thinking it’s meant for her. Cas doesn’t correct her, because in part it is.

Cas stands up, knees creaking (his knees, or Gayle’s?) and holds out a hand to Jane. “Come on, let’s go home. We’ll get some sleep and work on a compromise.”

Jane eyes Cas’s hand with a strong measure of distrust for a long moment, but then grasps it and allows Cas to pull her up. They walk back to the car hand-in-hand with Dean trailing after them, unseen.

* * *

 

Cas wakes up the next morning, gritty eyed and bleary. He’s still in Gayle’s room, so he gets up out of bed and shuffles down the hall to Jane’s bedroom. The door’s open ajar, and she’s sleeping, the quilt pulled up almost to her forehead, so only a small amount of her dark hair shows. Cas leaves her to sleep. He calls in sick for the both of them, leaving a message on Zachariah’s voice mail machine and with the one at the school. After attempting to untangle the long phone cord, he gives it up as a bad job and hangs up the phone.

He’s making breakfast when Jane comes in, yawning and pulling her long hair up into a messy ponytail that hangs off the side of her head. She sends a tentative smile Cas’s way and sets the table without being asked to.

It’s a start, Cas thinks.

They spend the day negotiating. They go to the park and sit in the sun while they talk, and there’s give and take. It’s not perfect, in fact most of what Jane wants Cas (and Dean, with input from Jody) has to say no to. And Jane only puts up a token fight, which worries Cas, but they’re in a positive place, so he keeps his mouth shut about it.

By the time dinner rolls around, they’re both exhausted, so they reheat some of the chicken and pasta from the other night and eat it on the living room couch. When Cas suggests it, Jane gives him a look.

“What?” he asks.

“You never let me eat on the couch,” Jane replies. She shrugs and plops down on the soft cushions before Cas can say anything.

He joins her and says, “I can change my mind.” 

Jane snorts into her pasta, and Cas winks at her.

Before Jane heads up to bed, she wraps her arms around Cas’s middle and squeezes him hard. Cas lets his arms rise up to hold her, and then she pulls away, looking as awkward as Cas feels. She ducks her head and heads into her room, but leaves the door open.

Cas brushes his teeth slowly and washes his face, taking a long moment to examine the face of the woman in the mirror. So used to seeing bright blue eyes look back at him from the mirror, it’s disconcerting seeing dark brown ones instead.

He changes into a nightgown and crawls into bed. As he leans up to turn off the light, he startles. Dean’s perched on the bed next to him.

“You did good today, Cas,” Dean says, propping one boot over the other. He leans back against the headboard and looks down.

“Uh, thanks,” Cas replies. He feels a little... well, naked, even though he’s wearing a nightgown. Dean’s not looking at his body, though, but has his head tilted as he looks into Cas’s face.

“No, seriously. You and Jane, you guys worked some stuff out. Sam says that she stays home until college, and she gets a good job later.” Dean fiddles with the handheld, flipping it over and over in tiny little circles while he talks.

“That’s good,” Cas says.

“Yeah. Do you think that’s what you’re here for? To, I don’t know, fix people’s shit?”

Cas props himself up on his elbows. “I don’t know.”

Dean hums. “Sam thinks he’s close. To finding a way to get you home, I mean.”

“Home would be good,” Cas replies, but he wonders if he’d be home with or without his memory.

Dean hesitates, but then taps on the handheld and opens the portal. “Maybe you’ll come home without Sam. ‘Night Cas.”

“Good night, Dean,” Cas says. He watches as Dean steps through and then shuts down the portal. The sudden gloom of the bedroom is more pronounced, and it weighs heavily on Cas. He lies back down again, and turns on his side. He falls asleep wondering where and when he’ll wake up.


	3. 1993

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for homophobic language, bullying and fighting in this chapter.

Loud thumping. Thump thump thump. Silence. Then the thumping begins again, in earnest. 

“DUDE!” hollered through the door.

Cas throws off the blankets covering him. Not home, not Gayle’s room. He sighs. Yet another time. What’s going to be the story this go around?

He stands up and realizes he’s a lot further from the ground than he’s used to, and he’s pretty tall - six feet. But this person... guy? girl? is much, much taller than that. He looks down and his feet are very far away.

The thumping and yelling continues, so he shuffles to the door. He gets a quick glimpse of the room he’s in - small with a cot-like bed, a desk and a door leading off to a tiled room that he assumes is a bathroom. There’s a closet, the door barely shut and clothes spilling out of it onto the floor at the foot of the bed. A wall of window is perpendicular to the door, which he opens.

On the other side is another monstrously tall person, at about eye level to Cas. He’s muscular, wide shoulders and a broad chest, all of which are covered in a t-shirt with cutoff sleeves. He’s got blonde hair and blue eyes and a chiseled jawline, and he looks... well, he looks angry. His eyes are like ice chips as he takes in Cas... or whoever he’s supposed to be.

Before Cas can even say hello, the guy pulls back and punches Cas on the jaw. He goes reeling back into the room and lands on his butt.

“Stay the fuck away from me, Sean! I mean it!”

Cas stays on the ground. The behemoth of a guy turns on his heel and stalks down the hallway loudly cursing as he goes.

“Shit,” Cas says, wishing he’d stayed in bed.

Dean finds him fifteen minutes later, still on the floor. Cas has moved away from the door, and is rifling through the wallet that he’d just found in a pair of jeans on the floor. His name is Sean Miller, and he’s apparently six foot seven, according to his driver’s license.

“Man, you’re friggin’ huge,” Dean says, kneeling down in front of Cas. “And I live with Sammy, so that’s saying something.”

“I think I’m on a basketball team,” Cas says, lurching to his feet. His jaw throbs where the guy had punched him. He doesn’t know if he’s ever been sucker punched before, but this is definitely not an experience he wishes to repeat. Ever.

“Did you... did someone punch you?” Dean asks, squinting as he peers at Cas’s jaw.

“Yeah,” Cas says, looking away from Dean’s piercing glance. “Some guy pounded on the door and when I opened it, pow.”

“Pow,” Dean says, his jaw working beneath the skin of his cheek. “What’s the guy look like?”

“What are you going to do, Dean? Waft through him menacingly? You’re a hologram, remember? Now can we just... can you just tell me what you know about this guy Sean Miller? Please?” Cas winces when he recognizes a little bit of a whine in his tone, but he’s tired and he just wants to go home, whenever that might be. This leaping into people’s lives for a short period of time is exhausting, the ups and downs of other people’s lives wearing on his already frayed nerves.

Dean huffs and grumbles as he brings up his handheld. “You’re Sean Miller, which you’ve already figured out. Yeah, you play basketball for Swarthmore College. You’re here on a sports scholarship, but you’re also studying... hey, look at that, you’re studying physics. At least you know something about that.”

“I do?” Cas asks, but the second it’s out of his mouth he realizes that yes, of course he does. Even though his memory is riddled with holes, just the word physics brings to mind all sorts of formulas.

“Yeah, Cas, you do.” Dean looks back at the handheld and clears his throat. “Okay, and, um, it looks like. Oh.”

“What?” Cas tries to lean over and see what it is that Dean sees on the handheld, but from this angle the screen’s unreadable.

“Well, apparently you get kicked out of school,” Dean says after a long moment. “And.... well, you don’t make it home.”

“Really? What is going on here? All these people who...whose lives are so miserable that I have to jump in and, what, save them all?” Cas leaps to his feet and paces up and down the small room. His long legs make the pacing unsatisfying, as it takes just a few strides to get to one side and back. He needs more room, he needs to move. He digs through the pile of laundry, making a face at the smells that emanate from the dirty clothing. He finds a pair of converse sneakers, bright red, and ties them on.

“I need to go for a walk.” He slams the door shut behind him and finds a stairwell. He patters down the stairs and thrusts himself out of the room into a bright, sunny morning. The sky is a brilliant blue and only a few fluffy clouds mar the expanse. The college campus is green, a long lawn of grass rolling out before him, old oaks lining the edges of the sidewalks. The buildings have attractive gray stone faces and white wooden trim. Cas looks around appreciatively before taking off in a random direction, his long legs eating up the ground beneath him.

Dean pops up by his side a minute or so later. “Cas,” Dean says, having to jog to catch up. Cas ignores him in favor of crossing over the path and down toward what looks to be a train station. It’s cool and damp out, and the fresh air does a lot to begin to clear his head.

There’s a blooping sound and Dean appears right in front of him. “Cas!” But Cas blows on through, at once a weird and completely satisfactory experience. Dean lets loose a muffled curse behind him, and Cas smirks to himself. He knows he’s being a jerk, but he feels like he’s entitled.

* * *

 

Dean huffs in irritation, but instead of trying to stop Cas, he jogs silently beside him. Until Cas gets whatever this is out of his system, he’ll just hang around.

Cas finds a tunnel underneath the railroad station and after that stumbles onto the field complex of the campus. There’s an outdoor track that he turns onto, with Dean hot on his trail. They walk around the track a few times - Cas doesn’t count and Dean gives up after the second go ‘round - until Cas walks into the center and plops down on the grass. Dean sits down next to him, and while he wants to make some kind of snarky remark about if Cas has gotten his shit together, or his tantrum out of his system or what-the-fuck-ever, he doesn’t. He’s actually kind of proud of himself for that.

“So what’s this guy’s story,” Cas asks in a flat tone after a little while. He sounds defeated, and a small part of Dean wants to lean over and squeeze his shoulder or something. Sometimes being a hologram really sucks. What Dean does do is check out the handheld, and he tells Cas about Sean Miller, or what Sam’s been able to figure out, anyway.

“So we know that he’s here on a scholarship, and that he’s studying physics. Sam says that this guy must be smart, if he’s at this school, by the way.” Dean waits for some kind of acknowledgement from Cas before he continues. Cas waves his hand to show he’s heard. 

“Anyway, according to the police reports filed by one of his teammates, he just... well he got kicked off the team and out of the school, lost his scholarship, and then he just disappeared. No one knows what happened to him. His parents had him declared dead in 2003.”

Cas squints at Dean. “What time are we supposed to be from?”

“It’s 2014,” Dean replies.

“So, uh, this is... when?”

“1993.”

Cas thinks about 1993. “We were in college,” he says to himself. “You and me, we were in college, and we were roommates. God, this kid’s the same age as us.”

“Well. You’re older than I am by six months,” Dean feels the need to point out. Ever since they hit their late thirties, he’s enjoyed holding that over Cas. When they’d -- “Wait. You remember college?"

Cas shakes his head. “No. I mean, yeah, I guess. Kind of? I remember that you were there.” Cas gives Dean a long, assessing look. “You’re... you’re everywhere.”

Dean grunts at that, and, feeling a prickle under his collar, he changes the subject. “Uh, so, anyway, I’m guessing that we want to make sure that this guy doesn’t go AWOL and end up dead.”

“We don’t know for sure that he’s dead,” Cas points out, logical to the last. “Just that his family had him declared dead. There’s a difference, Dean.”

Dean rolls his eyes. He watches as a couple of college students jog past. “All right, all right, Commander Spock,” Dean says. “We want to make sure this guy doesn’t go AWOL. Satisfied?”

Cas just stares off into the middle distance, as if he hadn’t heard Dean at all.

“Fine. Listen, you’d better figure out this guy’s class and practice schedule, otherwise you’ll be the one who gets him kicked out of school.” Dean unfolds his legs and stands up. “I’ll be back later. Try not to get punched in the face again, okay?”

* * *

 

When Cas gets back to his room, he spends a long time trying to find a copy of Sean’s class schedule. It’s a Sunday, and for that he’s grateful, because he’s not missing any classes, and he can take some time to find his way around the campus.

If he ever finds the schedule, that is.

Sean Miller doesn’t have a roommate, and he definitely doesn’t have a cleaning service or a maid, because the room is a mess. Piles of dirty and clean laundry mixed together (although Cas supposes that means it’s all dirty, really), papers crumpled and tossed onto the desk, underneath the bed, into the bottom of his bookbag...

Cas sighs heavily and gives up looking for the schedule. Instead, he starts straightening up the room. He’s not going to find anything until he knows where everything is.

He doesn’t think about how this is kind of a violation of this guy’s space, figuring that he’s already in the guy’s body; organizing his notes and laundry isn’t going to make things much worse.

He separates the laundry into piles and brings a couple of loads down to the laundry room in the basement. It smells of detergent and cheap fabric softener. He tosses the clothing in two of the machines, adds the detergent, and feeds it a bunch of quarters. He contemplates waiting around for the laundry, but there are several other washers going and the laundry room is empty, so he figures that’s par for the course around here.

Several hours and four loads of laundry later, he has a basic system set up. Turns out that Sean’s taking two physics classes, one of them has a lab, an economics class and a writing class. Cas mulls over that last one, since it’s not an introductory writing class, but rather an advanced creative writing one. He’s found the syllabi for each of the classes, so now he knows where he needs to go for those, but the practice schedule is a bit more difficult. There’s no slip of paper that he can find that has anything written down.

He sets aside the papers and starts folding the freshly cleaned laundry. Already the room is looking a thousand times better, especially since he’s thrown out all of the trash that lay around it, and put all of the papers for each class together in a binder (Sean had one stuck between the bookcase and the desk).

There’s a knock on the door, and he flinches. It’s not a pounding like the one that woke him this morning, but his existence on the campus has so far been solitary, other than seeing Dean briefly this morning and his even more brief encounter with the guy’s fist before that.

So it’s with no small amount of trepidation that Cas approaches the door opens it cautiously. On the other side of the door is a grinning red head, who brightens like the sun when she sees Cas peer out.

“Sean!” she says, shouldering her way into the room. “Missed you at lunch today! Thought we were going to eat and then hang out in the amphitheatre and do some work on the project for Professor Mills. She’s tough, man. We gotta make sure it’s good.” The woman comes to a stop in the middle of the room and gapes. “Woah. No wonder you didn’t make it to lunch. Have you been cleaning all day?”

Cas nods dumbly, afraid to say anything that would give away that he has no idea who this person is. She’s pretty, with bright eyes and a cheerful aspect that draws him in. She’s obviously familiar with Sean and with his room, but Cas has no idea how familiar she is. Is she a friend? A girlfriend? Just a classmate that he’s beginning to get to know?

“Charlie!” A skinny boy who resembles Ichabod Crane sticks his head around the door. “Oh good, you found him.”

“Garth, I told you I would. Geeze, don’t go all Cape Fear on me, dude.”

“Naw, I wouldn’t do that, Charlie. Sean, where were you?”

Charlie answers for Cas. “He’s been cleaning and... dude. Did you do laundry?”

Cas nods. 

“It was getting rank,” he explains.

Charlie takes that for the truth that it is and diverts back to their group project. “Okay, so Garth and I were thinking that if we worked this angle -” and here she takes a piece of paper out of her back pocket and unfolds it on the now cleared away desk. Cas bends down to look at their work, and is impressed to see their novel approach. He catches himself before he says anything, though. Figures. When he finally has some actual expertise in an aspect of this crazy adventure, he can’t share it without letting slip that he isn’t who he looks like.

Charlie and Garth are looking at him expectantly, as if they’re waiting for a pronouncement on his part. He licks his lips and bends to look at the paper again to give himself a chance to gather his thoughts. After a moment, he says, “This looks great. How should we divide up the work?” This, at least, he knows how to do. It might be a while since he’s been in college, but he remembers how academia works. It’s like pulling on a worn pair of jeans, they fit in all the right places, molding to the body.

The three of them work for a while, until Cas’s stomach rumbles loudly. Garth’s mouth gives a wry twist and Charlie bursts into laughter. 

“Come on, let’s feed the beast,” she says holding a hand out for Cas to pull her up. They amble out of his room and head out to the dining hall.

As they pass by other students, most of them give him a shy wave or smile, although quite a few look away when he catches them looking, their eyes widening in alarm. Charlie hooks her arm through his elbow and they walk the rest of the way to the dining hall that way. Charlie seems oblivious to the few glares and stares that several people shoot her way, chattering about a new tv show that she’d started watching in the fall.

“I think you’d like it, Sean. It’s about aliens and conspiracies and shit. A hot FBI doc for me and a hot agent for you,” she winks at him.

“When’s it on?” Cas asks.

“Friday nights. Come on, you can come over, bring some popcorn and we’ll watch it. Give it a shot.”

Cas shrugs. “Sure, why not. Sounds interesting.”

Charlie looks over at Garth. “Garth, you in?”

Garth looks down at the ground, watching his feet as they walk over the brick walkway into the dining hall. “Naw, think I might have a date on Friday.”

Charlie pounces, pumping Garth for all the information she can get out of him about this prospective date. She gets much more than he’s willing to give, but a little less than she’s after, and Cas watches the whole proceeding in great amusement.

Cas is exhausted by the time they return from the dining hall, and he wants nothing more than to go to sleep. The combination of waking up in a strange bed, being decked by a stranger and the uncertainty of the last week has knocked the stuffing out of him. He eyes his bed longingly, but Charlie and Garth seem determined to hang around for a little while longer, at least.

It’s after midnight by the time they go, and Cas can’t stifle his yawns or hide his drooping eyes. Charlie purses her lips after one spectacular jaw-cracking yawn and yanks Garth out of Cas’s room with a cheerful wave to Cas.

He sinks onto the bed without bothering to change out of his clothes, asleep almost the second his head hits the pillow.

* * *

He’s woken by the sensation that he’s being watched. The back of his head tickles, like someone’s trying to bore a hole through his skull with their eyes. He rolls over, and practically falls out of the bed, which is really not quite big enough for Sean’s six foot seven frame.

There’s a snort and an aborted laugh from the desk, and Cas opens his eyes and looks up to see bright green and freckles staring down at him. “Dean,” he says, his voice rough with sleep.

“Mornin’ Cas. Rough night? Don’t see any ladies around here,” Dean says, smirking.

Cas ignores Dean in favor of picking himself up off the floor and heading into the bathroom. He scratches his rear before he realizes it, and hears Dean snorting in laughter again. He shuts the door emphatically and takes an extra long time peeing and brushing his teeth. Dean can wait if he’s going to be obnoxious.

Dean’s trying to look through Sean’s papers when Cas gets out of the bathroom. He can’t move any of them, because he’s a hologram, but that doesn’t seem to be stopping him from trying. He jumps a bit when Cas appears, flashes him a sheepish grin.

“There’s nothing interesting there,” Cas says.

Dean grunts. “I got a timeline for you.”

“Ok,” Cas says, pulling off his t-shirt from the day before. He tosses it into the laundry basket that he’d unearthed from the back of the closet and grabs a new shirt, this one maroon with the word “Swarthmore” written across it in big white lettering. He doesn’t see the look that flashes over Dean’s face just before his head pops up through the hole in the top of the shirt. “Shoot.”

Dean fumbles with his handheld. “So, ah. Looks like something happens tomorrow? Tuesday? And there’s a hearing on Thursday about it, where they decide to kick you out of the school. You’re not heard from after the hearing, and then...” Dean shrugs.

Cas frowns, his nose wrinkling as he does so. “What’s the hearing about?”

“Uh,” Dean checks. “You got thrown out for starting a fight during one of your team practices.”

Affronted, Cas puffs up his chest. “I would never.”

“No, you wouldn’t Cas, but maybe this guy Sean would? I dunno,” Dean replies, scratching the back of his head. “Seems a weird thing for this guy to go AWOL over, though.”

Cas stuffs a notebook and a couple of pens into the backpack that he’d found way under the bed, and shoulders it. “Well, I have to get to class.”

“Don’t punch anyone, okay?”

Cas scowls at Dean, and shuts the door on his grinning face.

On the walk to class, Cas thinks about what might force Sean into starting a fight with someone. From everything Cas has learned about Sean, he’s a bright, cheerful young man, and most people like him. Charlie and Garth had been nice to Cas - Sean - and they’d seemed to get along well. Cas shakes his head and concentrates on finding the lecture hall for his first class of the day.

Cas makes it to Sean’s class with just a few moments to spare, since he got turned around in the maze of classrooms and it took extra time to find the right room. He slides into a seat toward the back and takes out his notebook. The professor comes in right behind him and gets started on the lecture right away.

It’s one of Sean’s physics classes, and Cas gets caught up in the subject matter, rapt with attention, until he hears a hissing noise to his right. He glances over, but doesn’t see anything, so he goes back to focusing on the lecture. The hissing noise comes again. When Cas looks up, one of the other students, his face twisted into an ugly sneer says in a harsh whisper, “Fag.”

Cas’s eyebrows beetle together, but he ignores the student. He doesn’t seem to like that, because he says it again, this time a little louder, so there’s no mistaking what he’s said and who he’s directing it toward. Cas turns aside so his back faces the other student. That doesn’t stop the student from muttering at him for the remainder of the class.

Cas vibrates with anger by the time the class ends, and so he packs up his notebook as quickly as he can before dashing out of the lecture hall. The other student follows him, though.

“Hey, fag!” He hollers down the hallway. A few of the other students turn toward the commotion and there are frowns on their faces, but they don’t say anything, not even when the guy purposely bumps into Cas and pushes him into the wall. Cas glares down at the student, who he towers over by a good six inches, but the guy’s full of self-righteous anger and he lets forth a spew of expletives.

Cas puts his hand on the guy’s chest and pushes him away gently.

“Don’t you fucking touch me. I don’t want to get any of your gay, man,” the guy says, jerking away.

“Then I suggest that you stop bothering me,” Cas says mildly. He re-shoulders his backpack and walks away.

Throughout the day, there are several more episodes like this one, and Cas begins to feel beaten down. By the time all of his classes are over, all he wants to do is go back to his room and crawl back into bed. Maybe when he wakes up he’ll be in another time entirely.

But he’s got to go to conditioning, which means going back to his room and grabbing his gym stuff. He lopes back across campus, marveling at the length of Sean’s stride as he goes. He grabs the gym bag from its spot next to his desk and dashes over to the sports complex where he has just enough time to change and go to the weight room.

Inside the room are the other members of the team - or, that’s what he assumes - they’re all tall and muscled, like Sean is. Several have already started working out, spotting each other with weights. Cas stops in the doorway when he sees one of the players toward the back - it’s the guy who greeted him with his fist the other day.

Well. That is indeed interesting. Cas is beginning to put together a bit of a picture of what might be going on here. Someone shoves at him from behind to get him out of the doorway, and he steps into the room. He makes his way over to a corner opposite from his attacker and starts warming up. Loud music plays in the room, so there’s no need for conversation. There are a couple other players in the same corner, but after a few minutes, they drift away to some other part of the weight room.

In fact, several of them have crowded against the wall opposite Cas, even though there’s lots of room near him, and not very much on the other wall. Cas puts his weights down with a thud when he realizes that he’s being completely ostracized by the other members of the team. He glances over to the corner of the room where their coach stands, arms crossed across his chest. He looks away when Cas catches his eye.

Cas draws himself up to his full height and goes over to the guy who punched him yesterday morning. Out of the corner of his eye he sees Dean appear, and there’s a sinking feeling in his gut. He doesn’t know how Dean’s going to respond to this potentially volatile situation. Cas stands just close enough so that the guy can hear him when he says, “I don’t know what you think I did to you, but I’d appreciate it if you left me alone.”

The other guy sneers, but he’s not the one who speaks. “Hey, Holden, is Miller bothering you?” one of the other players says from the other side of the gym.

Holden shakes his head. “Nah, I got it. This fag doesn’t scare me.”

Cas frowns, and Dean steps closer to Holden. Cas has no idea what Dean intends to do - it’s not as if he’s corporeal. “Are you referring to me?”

“What, are you kidding? Yeah, I’m talking about you, you homo. You’re the one who came onto me, and now you’re standing over here in my space, what the fuck?” Holden takes a step backward, away from Cas.

Understanding dawns. Suddenly the whole day makes sense. The student in lecture earlier, the whispers behind the hands of the students around him in the dining hall, the looks. 

“I see. You feel as if I have threatened your masculinity.” Cas gives a nod of his head. “I should have realized that you’d be intimidated. It won’t happen again,” Cas says. He grabs his gym bag and stalks out of the gym, leaving Holden standing by himself, red-faced and spluttering. Cas hears several of their teammates shouting Sean’s name behind him, but he ignores them.

“Cas!” Dean says, jogging up beside him. “What was that all about?” It's the first time he's appeared all day.

Cas keeps his eyes straight ahead and doesn’t stop moving, taking long strides back to his dorm room. A misty drizzle falls around them, and soon his hair is damp and plastered to his head. 

“You heard, Dean,” Cas says.

“What, that this kid is gay? So?” Dean says.

Cas stops in his tracks. “Dean. It’s 1993, not 2014. I may not remember a whole lot of things, but I remember that this was the year that the president signed that ridiculous ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ law. I remember that poor boy who got murdered in Wyoming in the late 90s just because he was gay.” Cas jabs his finger into his sternum for emphasis. “If Sean was the victim of homophobia and got into a fight over it, it’s more than likely that he didn’t just disappear off the grid, Dean. This might be a liberal school, but this is an uncertain and dangerous time for homosexual youths.”

Cas pauses to take a breath from his rant, and Dean holds up his hands, palms outward. 

“Okay, yeah, I get it. So you think that what happened to Sean was...”

“More than just getting caught for fighting,” Cas finishes for Dean. His eyes flicker over Dean’s shoulder. “Come on, let’s go.” He turns on his heel and continues toward his dorm room.

They get back to Sean’s room without further incident, though Cas looks over his shoulder several times, a worried expression hovering on his face. 

* * *

 

Cas spends the next few days looking over his shoulder, hastening his steps whenever he sees a group of athletes behind him. As much as he hates the idea of giving into the fear he has about Sean being attacked, he's more worried about the aftermath of the fight than anything else.

On the third day, Charlie confronts him in his room. They're studying for a physics test, seated on the floor with their backs to his bed. It's been quiet for a while, nothing but the rustle of turning pages and the squeak of Charlie's bright green highlighter across her textbook. Cas is aware of the way her eyes flicker over to him and he studiously ignores her.

Finally, though, Charlie must be tired of the entire thing, because she snaps her book shut with a heavy sigh and pluck's Cas's pencil from his hand.

"Hey!" he says. "I was using that."

"Put your books away, Miller, cuz we gotta talk." Charlie sets her own books aside and folds her arms over her chest. When Cas doesn't move immediately, she raises an eyebrow and looks pointedly at the notebook and text in his lap.

"Fine," he huffs, setting them down on the floor next to his legs. "What." 

To her credit, Charlie doesn't blanche at the rude tone, nor does she look any less determined. "That's what I wanna know. Something's up your butt, and it's been there most of the week. What's going on?"

Cas hesitates, not knowing how close the real Sean and Charlie are, although given how much time they've spent together since Cas has been here, he's willing to bet that they're pretty close. 

He decides to take a chance. He tells her which teammate had punched him in the face, and how he's worried that a bunch of other guys on the team are going to try to hurt him. He leaves out the fact that he knows this for sure. Based on how much he's been followed by groups of guys from the team, he's not being completely paranoid. He ends with this statement and looks down. His fingers are tangled together in his lap, twisting and turning.

"Dude," Charlie says, and that's all she says for a little while. The silence between them is palpable, but not necessarily uncomfortable. After a long moment, Charlie rests her head on Cas's shoulder and says, "We should tell someone."

"Who?" Cas asks. "A coach was there in the weight room. He didn't do anything."

Charlie taps her chin with her finger. "That's not good."

"No," Cas agrees. He feels as if a great weight has been lifted from his shoulders, despite the fact that it's clear that Charlie can't do anything, not really. It's not unlike having a holographic Dean around to watch his back, but with Charlie, at least, there's a real physical shoulder he can lean on. 

Charlie shimmies a little closer, so they're seated hip-to-hip and she says, "Well you're not going anywhere by yourself. Not anymore."

"I can handle myself," Cas protests.

"Yeah, you can, Han Solo, but sometimes it's easier with more people around. They might not jump you if you're surrounded by a group of friends."

Cas snorts, because the idea of Charlie and Garth surrounding him is a laughable one. Charlie's about a foot shorter than he is in Sean's body, and while Garth is tall - just over six foot - he's thin as a whip and looks like he'd break in half in a strong wind.

Charlie pokes him in the side. "I know what you're thinking, Miller. Cut it out. There's safety in numbers, even if the people making up those numbers are short and skinny. Besides, we can get a whole bunch more folks to help out, I just know it."

* * *

 

Charlie's true to her word. She shows up with Garth in tow the next morning, shoving a large cup of coffee into Cas's hands when he opens up his dorm door. They're met in the lobby by two others, a brunette named Dorothy who's wearing a dark brown leather jacket with a silk aviator scarf and a beefy guy named Ronald with wild hair and a frayed Star Trek t-shirt. They fall into step just behind Charlie, Cas, and Garth, and head towards Sean's first class.

The escort seems to work. Cas notices that he sees fewer of his fellow athletes in menacing groups as he walks around campus, and so he relaxes his guard a little bit. He and Charlie get into a small tiff about it, one that makes Garth blush and walk away while they fight in the quad.

"The second you relax they're going to come after you, Sean!" Charlie exclaims, arms flailing in the air to punctuate her point. 

She's right, of course, and she's proven as such at the next day's practice. He'd insisted on coming by himself, thinking that there was really no way that anyone would try anything while they were in the gym. All of the players involved in a fight would get put on probation and they'd all have to attend a disciplinary hearing.

That doesn't seem to stop them, though.

Three of them crowd around Cas, pushing him into the corner of the weight room. In the reflection of the mirror, Cas can see several other students in the room turn their backs, effectively leaving him alone with the players. Though he knows it’s useless, Cas cranes his head around looking for their coach, but as expected, he’s nowhere to be found. Cas curls his hands into fists, the feeling at once familiar and alien. 

He doesn’t have any more time to prepare when an arm swings towards his jaw. He ducks to the side, grateful for the athletic reflexes in this body. He comes up swinging, and is rewarded when his own fist makes contact with someone’s stomach. Other than the pounding of the bass from the music that fills the gym, the only other sounds are the labored breathing of the fighters, and the soft “oof” that one of them makes as Cas hits again.

The instincts of Sean’s body take over, moving Cas in ways that he knows that he’s never done before, even if his own memories are like swiss cheese. He ducks and swings, pushes up with his shoulder, pushes back against the three who have him cornered, but even Cas knows that it’s hopeless, that there’s really no way he can win a fight against three other athletes who are just as fit and trained as he is.

“HEY!” The booming voice of the head coach stops them all in their tracks, the snarls frozen on the faces of Cas’s attackers. Cas breathes heavily, sweat pouring down the side of his face, and now that he’s not focused on moving out of the way of the onslaught of fists, he’s beginning to feel the aftermath of the fight. The side of his head throbs where one of them clipped him, and his knuckles feel like raw hamburger.

The coach steps in the middle of the scrum and starts yelling, demanding answers about what’s going on. “Who started the fight?” he asks.

Cas opens his mouth to answer, but one of the other guys just points at Cas wordlessly. The coach looks skeptical, but he turns to face Cas and says, “That true Miller? Did you start the fight?” Anger floods through him and he shakes his head, a sharp abortive movement. The coach eyes the scene and then nods, accepting Cas’s answer at face value. 

“It was those three,” Another voice says from behind the coach. It comes from one of the other athletes in the room, but not one from the basketball team. He’s much shorter than the basketball players, though he stands sure and tall, his feet hips-width apart and one hand pointed levelly at the three athletes standing around Cas. “They cornered him and started whaling on him.” 

The accusation breaks a dam, and several of the other athletes in the room nods their heads in agreement. There’s a soft chorus of “Yeahs”, from them, and the coach rounds on the three basketball players who’d attacked Cas.

“All three of you in my office, now.” His voice is low and dangerous. Their shoulders dip and they shuffle away before the coach has to repeat himself. He turns back to the young man who’d spoken and says, “You, what’s your name?”

He tilts his chin up. “Kevin, sir. Kevin Tran.” 

Nodding, the coach says, “You’re probably gonna have to make a statement about the fight. You okay with that, Tran?”

“Yes sir,” Kevin says. He flashes a small smile. “I hate bullies, sir.”

The coach doesn’t answer, instead whirling on his heel toward his office. “One of you take Miller to campus police and then to the infirmary.” 

Cas, who’d sagged against the wall, barely hears this last, the rushing sound in his ears quickly turning to ringing. He registers Kevin slinging Cas’s arm around his shoulders and helping him out of the gym with a murmured, “C’mon.” Kevin’s got one hand holding Cas’s arm steady, and another one curled protectively around Cas’s waist. Though Cas must tower over him by at least a foot, must weigh a ton leaning as he is against Kevin’s support, Kevin carries him easily out of the gym.

The rest of the afternoon is a whirlwind of questions and giving his statement. After the police, Kevin takes Cas to the infirmary, where the resident in charge clucks over Cas, muttering that they should have gone there first, instead of to the police. Kevin doesn’t leave Cas’s side the entire time, something for which Cas is grateful.

It isn’t until Kevin takes Cas back to his room that they learn that the three who started the fight have not only been kicked off the team, but that proceedings for having them expelled from school have started as well. Cas sits on the edge of his bed gingerly, eyeing Kevin, who is still, inexplicably, by his side. Kevin kneels and helps Cas take off his shoes, and then situates Cas more comfortably on his bed. 

“Get some sleep. I’ll be back a bit later with some food,” Kevin says quietly. There’s a look on his face that Cas can’t quite identify, though he thinks he’s seen it on Dean’s face when Dean thought Cas wasn’t looking. Cas falls asleep contemplating what that might mean.


	4. 2004

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for mentions of John Winchester's A+ parenting in this chapter.

Every time Cas leaps, there’s a moment of disorientation, almost like seeing double. A part of him is still back in the previous time period, still experiencing the world through the eyes of the last person he’d been. But another part of him is already latching onto the new world, the new time period.

This time, though, it’s less disorienting and more familiar. The shape of the room, the placement of the furniture, he feels like he knows them like the back of his hand. He puzzles over that for a few moments.

“Cas?” A woman’s voice comes from behind him, and he turns around to see an older woman with long blonde hair, bright blue eyes and a sad smile hovering on her lips. She gathers Cas into her arms and murmurs, “I’m so glad you’re here, Cas.”

“Mrs. Winchester,” Cas says without conscious thought, because of course it’s Mary Winchester, and this is the house Sam and Dean grew up in. He returns the hug, letting the honeysuckle scent of her hair settle over him. 

“Cas, it’s good to see you. I told you to call me Mary. Sam’s upstairs. Is Dean with you?” Mary Winchester asks.

He shakes his head. “No, not this time.”

Mary looks sad at that, but she quickly recovers and says in a tone heavy with disappointment, “It would have been good for him to be here.”

Acid churns in Cas’s stomach as he agrees. His memory’s still swiss cheese, but he thinks he knows when this is, and he really wishes it wasn’t.

Cas trudges up the stairs to Sam’s room, where he knows the younger Winchester is finishing up his doctoral thesis on applied physics. He taps on the door.

“Come in,” Sam says.

Cas opens the door, and he’s overwhelmed by his déjà vu. Seated at his desk is a much younger Sam Winchester. His hair is shorter, curling around his ears, though a little wild from Sam running his fingers through it in either frustration or distraction.

“Sam,” Cas says.

“Hey Cas!” Sam pushes back his chair and for the second time in less than five minutes, Cas is engulfed in a Winchester hug. Sam squeezes lightly before stepping back. “Thanks for coming, Cas. Is Dean with you?”

Cas inhales. “Sorry, no, Sam.”

Sam looks disappointed, mirroring the sad look Mary had given Cas just a few moments earlier. He nods stiffly though, as if he’d been expecting no less. 

“I guess I get why.” Sam looks small, hunched over, the corners of his mouth pulled down at the edges. 

“Sam,” Cas begins, but Sam cuts him off.

“No, Cas. You don’t have to apologize for him. He’s not coming. Mom and I will be okay without him tomorrow. It’ll just be us.”

Cas squeezes Sam’s shoulder. “Not just you. I’ll be there, too.” Sam smiles sadly and nods at that, shifting back toward his desk. Effectively dismissed, Cas leaves Sam’s room. He jogs downstairs and out onto the front porch, pulling out his cellphone.

Cas glares at the ancient device in his palm. He brings up Dean’s name and takes his frustration out on the keypad, pushing send with vicious pressure. He doesn’t feel any better, and now he’s probably bruised his thumb for his efforts. Great.

He never understood why Dean wasn’t here for this. There’d been mumbled explanations when Cas returned to their tiny apartment, but none of them had really been fully satisfactory. And modern Dean -  his Dean - hasn’t shown up yet to give Cas any inkling as to what’s going on or why he’s here.

Not that Cas needs background - he remembers this weekend. He remembers the sadness and hurt on Mary’s face as the days passed and it became increasingly clear Dean wasn’t going to show. By Sunday morning, Mary’s smiles were forced and Sam had grown more surly by the hour.

Dean - past Dean - doesn’t answer the phone, and when the voicemail message does its thing, Cas has worked himself up into a right snit. 

“Dean Winchester, you call me back the second you get this message, or so help me I will drive all the way back to Springfield and throw you into my trunk. You are being a gigantic asshole!” Cas hisses. He slams his phone closed after ending the call. He briefly considers throwing the phone, but in the end he doesn’t. If the phone breaks, Dean won’t be able to get through.

Cas makes his way back upstairs to Dean’s room, one that he knows as well as his own, and plops down on the lower bunk bed. Apart from being a lot cleaner than when Dean lived in it, the room looks very much the same. Band and movie posters plaster the walls, plus the poster of Albert Einstein sticking out his tongue that Cas had brought for Dean for some birthday or another. The bookcase is tidy, all the book spines facing the same direction, and organized by subject and author. Cas huffs a quiet laugh. Dean would be pissed to know that Sam’s been moving his books around. 

Suddenly, Cas feels the weight of his recent weeks settle in his bones, pulling him further into the mattress. He’s exhausted, worn down by the adrenaline of dealing with other people’s problems and never knowing what’s going to happen next. For the first time in what feels like a year, he’s someplace familiar and comforting. Shifting to his side, he lets sleep overtake him. Maybe Dean will be here by the time he wakes up.

* * *

 

Dean hasn’t called by dinnertime, not that Cas had really expected him to. But _his_ Dean hasn’t shown up either, and that has Cas worried. It’s never taken more than an hour for Dean to locate Cas, armed with information gathered by Sam - their Sam - ready to guide Cas through the landmines of the newest leap. Cas doesn’t have to feign worry.

Dinner’s a quiet affair. The three of them don’t even bother to fill the silence left by Dean’s absence. When they’ve eaten their fill, Cas gathers their dishes before Mary can stand, and busses them to the kitchen. Sam brings in the rest and Cas rinses while Sam stacks them in the dishwasher.

When they finish, they join Mary in the living room. She thanks them for cleaning up, her eyes bright and reddened. She crushes a tissue in her fist.

“What time is the funeral?” Cas asks.

“Eleven.” Mary glances at the clock, where it’s just gone past eight. “I’m going to turn in. Sam, can you make sure that Cas has everything he needs?”

Sam nods, and Mary kisses Sam on the cheek before coming over to Cas and doing the same. Her perfume lingers in the air around Cas for a moment after she leaves, and Cas inhales deeply. After being in the lives of strangers recently, the familiar scent of his second home is heavenly. His anger at Dean, his worry about _his_ Dean - both of those loosen a bit.

Sam and Cas try to watch some tv, but nothing grabs their attention. Sam tosses the remote to Cas and announces he’s also going to bed. Cas turns off the tv and heads up not long after, his heart heavy.

* * *

 

“What do you mean you can’t find him?” Dean yelps. He winces at the squeak in his voice, but it’s been _hours_. Hours since Cas left that college, hours since Cas leaped into the next life, and no sign of him.

“Just what I said, Dean.” Sam’s voice has carefully controlled patience in it. “He’s not showing up anywhere. Usually the computer picks him up immediately - he’s like a beacon in there. But –” Sam waves at the array of monitors in front of him.

Dean paces back and forth through the lab, wearing a path in the linoleum. The oblique pattern’s burnt into his retinas now; when he closes his eyes to take a breath, he can see the negative of it on his eyelids.

He’s not panicking about this. He’s just... mildly concerned. That’s it.

Except he feels like he’s going to throw up, and something heavy in his chest is dragging him down.

Dean might be panicking a little bit.

“Sam...” Dean begins, but Sam doesn’t let him finish.

“I know, Dean. We’ll find him.” Sam hunches over the keyboard, navigating through the miles of code. Dean snorts, muttering to himself while he continues to pace. He wants to do something, be useful, but the coding part was always Sam’s thing - Sam and Cas’s - while Dean put the machine together. He got all the parts working and talking to each other. Dean can’t help with the software.

“Dammit Cas,” Dean growls for what must be the hundredth time since Cas’s last leap. “Where the fuck are you?”

Dean hovers over Sam’s shoulder until Sam shoves him aside. “Dean, go away!”

“What? No!” Dean splutters.

Sam’s face is a dark thundercloud. “Dean. I need to concentrate, and you are distracting the fuck out of me. Go do your pacing and worrying someplace else. Just. Go. Away.” Sam points at the door, punctuating his last three words, and then turns back to the monitors.

Dean stands behind Sam for a long, stunned moment, and then he retreats from the lab.

He cleans the kitchen, scrubbing the shelves and throwing away old jars of olives and expired salad dressing. He’s about to start in on the oven when he hears Sam give a whoop. Dean bursts into the lab.

“Did you find him?” he asks, breathless. his throat feels tight, like there’s a giant stone stuck inside.

“Yep. He’s in 2004,” Sam says. “And you’ll never guess where.”

Dean resists the urge to punch Sam, if only because they need him here watching when Dean steps into the holographic chamber. “Sam...”

“Lawrence. He’s home, Dean.”

A wave of vertigo washes over Dean. “Lawrence?” 

“Yeah,” Sam says. And though he trains his puppy eyes on Dean, he doesn’t say anything. Dean’s the one who puts it succinctly.

“Fuck.”

* * *

 

Cas falls asleep waiting for Dean. Whether he’s waiting for his Dean to show up, or the Dean from this time to call isn’t certain. When he hears his name being called -  _his_ name, not someone else’s, he’s disoriented. He shifts, stretching his arms overhead, and raps his knuckles against the frame of the upper bunk bed. That wakes him up, and his eyes fly open. He’s greeted with the sight of Dean leaning over the edge of the top bunk and grinning down at him.

Cas scrubs his face. “Which Dean are you?” he asks, his voice rough with sleep.

Dean smirks and waves his handheld device. “I am from the future!” he intones. Cas groans and tosses a pillow at Dean’s head. Unfortunately, it sails right through him.

“Dude, I’m a hologram,” Dean says. His grin fades quickly though, as he takes in the room. Cas watches Dean with interest, but whatever Dean’s thinking, he keeps it under wraps.

“So, 2004, huh?” Dean says after a long moment. Dean consults the handheld device, which makes a few blooping noises. “Have you had...” he clears his throat. “The funeral hasn’t happened yet?”

Cas shakes his head. “You’re not answering your cellphone.”

Dean hides his face in the edge of the mattress. “Yeah.”

Cas lifts his legs and pushes up against the mattress above him. He’s rewarded with the odd sight of Dean’s holographic torso appearing and swallowing his feet. It’s nowhere near as satisfactory as the gesture would have been had Dean actually been there.

Cas sits up and checks the clock - just past five. He opens the curtains and stares out into the early Kansas morning. It’s late spring, and there are bluish pink hints of daylight on the far horizon.

“Dean,” Cas starts, but he doesn’t know what to say. This Dean’s already been through this. He’s already had the fight with Sam that resulted in their not talking for four years. Already hurt Mary, who withdrew from the world after the funeral, surprising them all by becoming a shadow of her former self.

The shrill ring of Cas’s cellphone startles both of them out of their bubbles. Cas looks at the screen and then back up at Dean.

“That’s me,” Dean says, though he doesn’t need to. Dean’s gut fills with squirming hot shame. he wants to tell Cas to ignore the call, so they can’t exchange angry and (on Dean’s part) drunken words. But Cas is already answering.

“Dean,” he says in greeting. Holographic!Dean leaps out of the bunk bed and stands next to Cas. He leans in, trying to hear himself on the phone.

Cas flaps his hand at (and through) Dean, though it does no good. On the phone, Dean’s babbling drunkenly. Cas can’t get a word in edgewise, and none of what Dean’s saying makes any sense.

Holographic!Dean makes a face. “Did I really sound like that?” he asks. 

Cas shoots him a glare. “Yes,” he hisses. “Hush.” The Dean on the phone must hear Cas, because he stops talking. Cas takes the opportunity to leap in. “Dean, you need to get here.” He listens for a long moment while Dean makes excuses, most of which are unintelligible. Cas listens until the Dean on the phone runs out of steam and repeats himself more forcefully. He doesn’t fully remember what happened the first time he had this conversation with Dean (and that will never not be weird), but he does remember how he felt - frustrated and out of sorts with his friend. The feeling’s there (again?) and he scrubs his hand through his hair. 

“I don’t care what you do to get here, Dean, but you need to get here as soon as you can.” Cas inhales. “And for god’s sake, don’t drink any more.” Cas hangs up before Dean can respond, and tosses the phone on the bottom bunk, where it lands with a loud thud. 

Holographic!Dean eyes him speculatively. “I don’t remember that conversation,” he says after a moment.

Cas huffs a sardonic laugh. 

“That makes two of us. You were a little drunk,” Cas says, hooking his thumb over his shoulder, indicating the phone. Dean answers that understatement with a loud snort.

* * *

 

The funeral is small. Cas follows Mary and Sam in his own car - he’d apparently driven himself there the previous day - and holographic!Dean sits in the passenger seat. He twists around, taking in the interior of the car, which is a 1973 Plymouth Valiant. 

“Cas, what --” Dean asks. “What the hell is this thing?”

Cas just sighs and ignores his friend, focusing on following Sam and not getting turned around in the maze of streets between the Winchester’s house and the cemetery. Dean makes several derogatory comments about the state of the vehicle beneath his breath, but he says them quietly enough that Cas can choose to ignore them. 

They park next to Sam, and Cas hops out of the car with alacrity. He holds the passenger door open for Mary, who gives him a wan smile and gets out. She peers around the parking lot and sighs heavily before heading into the lobby area, where they’re greeted by a supercilious funeral director. The director insists that they “call him Gary,” and he clasps everyone’s hand with both of his, holding on just a touch too long. 

“I’m so sorry for your loss,” he says to Mary, with a nod at Sam and Cas. “Are these your boys?”

“No, I’m--” Cas says, but Mary interrupts him.

“Yes, this is Sam, and Cas.”

Gary nods at the two of them, while holographic!Dean stares open-mouthed at Mary. Gary talks them through the service while Mary nods to show she’s paying attention, though her eyes flicker between her watch and the door every few seconds. Gary ushers them into one of the small rooms off on the side, with rows of chairs facing forward. The casket at the front is large and imposing, flanked on either side by two enormous bouquets. Mary grabs for Sam’s hand and he squeezes her reassuringly. Cas takes her other hand and does the same. Mary looks up at him and smiles before turning to the front of the room and steeling herself. 

They walk down the center aisle toward the casket, Mary white-knuckling Sam and Cas’s hands. The casket is open, and inside lies John Winchester. Eyes closed, he looks like he could be sleeping, although there’s a certain slackness to his skin that belies that fact. 

“He’s wearing a suit,” Sam remarks, sounding surprised.

“He didn’t want a military funeral,” Mary says. She lets go of Cas’s hand and raises her hand to sweep aside a stray hair from John’s forehead. “You have to request those, anyway,” she murmurs. She turns abruptly and settles in one of the seats in the front row. Folding her hands over her knees, she stares at the floor. 

Holographic!Dean motions for Cas from the doorway to the room, and Cas glances at Sam and Mary, both of whom seem lost in their own world. He follows Dean out into the hallway and around a corner where they’re less likely to be interrupted. 

“I’m going to see if I can check up on the other me, see how close he is to getting here.” Dean’s already got out his handheld device and he’s tapping instructions into it. 

Concern floods through Cas. “That’s a really bad idea, Dean,” he says. 

Dean looks up, surprised. “What? Why?”

Cas hesitates. He’s not really sure why it’s a bad idea. A strong sense of foreboding fills his chest as he tries to come up with an answer to Dean’s question. It’s there, just out of reach. If he could just remember. It’s like trying to grab something from the top of a tall bookcase, and only the tips of the fingers brush against it. “I--” He clears his throat and tries again. “It’s not like you could actually do anything to get... you... here faster, Dean.” 

Dean nods his head - point taken - and puts the handheld device away. “Okay, so, what, I should just stick around?”

Cas gives Dean a wry smile. “Well, you did miss the first time around.”

Dean looks at the floor, rubbing the back of his neck. “So you remember that, huh?”

Nodding, Cas says, “I’m remembering a lot, actually. Something about being back here, with Sam and your mom.” The smile on Cas’s face is hesitant, soft. “I remember her perfume.” Cas shakes his head, as if wiping away the last of a dream, and directs a stern look Dean’s way. “We should go back in. Mary will wonder what happened to me.”

The service is short, but poignant. Not very many people show up - just a few people that John worked with in the last years of his life, plus the family members already there. Neither John’s parents nor Mary’s are still alive, so Sam, Mary and Cas are the only family. The Dean of this time is still absent, noticeably so, though most of the mourners are too polite to comment on it.

Not so Missouri Moseley, though, who purses her lips in displeasure when she sees Sam and Cas flanking Mary. She pulls Mary aside and speaks to her in a loud whisper, so that most of the attendees can hear just how displeased she is about the fact that Dean isn’t at the service, supporting his mother. 

Mary’s back straightens after a moment of listening and she says in a clear voice, “Thank you for coming, Missouri. It means so much to me, and I know John would have appreciated it as well.” She places a hand on Missouri’s arm to soften the harshness of her words. Missouri’s mouth thins into a long line, but she nods curtly and pulls Mary into a gruff hug. Over Missouri's shoulder, Mary smiles at Cas, who watches the entire exchange with interest.

For his part, Dean seems embarrassed by the entire incident, though no one but Cas knows he’s there. He hovers at the back of the room, watching all the people who come in. Almost to a person, they walk slowly down the center aisle to the casket, where they hover, heads bowed for a moment. Then they turn to the side and murmur soft words to Mary, holding her hand in both of theirs, before squeezing and letting go. Mary looks tired, the skin around her mouth tight and her eyes huge in her pale face. Sam stands tall next to her, nodding at the visitors, but attending to his mother. Cas stands on the other side, thanking everyone for coming by and shaking their hands warmly.

Finally, the service is over, and everyone who’s come to pay their respects has left Mary, Sam and Cas standing alone in the room. Sam puts his arm around her waist and leads her outside, Cas following behind. Holographic!Dean takes a moment to hover over the casket, just as everyone else had, and then he follows the rest of his family out into the bright sunshine of the day. 

* * *

 

When they return to the Winchester household, there’s a cooler on the front porch. In true midwestern fashion, the cooler holds a variety of casseroles, each with a set of directions written on a brightly colored sticky note. Sam and Cas bring the cooler into the kitchen, and Mary puts the food away.

“I don’t know who they’re expecting to eat all of this food,” she shakes her head as she puts the fourth casserole into the fridge. “There’s enough here to feed an army!”

Sam takes off his suit jacket and puts it over the back of one of the kitchen chairs. “I’m sure it’ll be fine, Mom. You should sit down. It’s been a rough day.”

Mary frowns a bit at Sam, but otherwise ignores him, choosing to put the rest of the casseroles (six in all) away. “Cas, would you empty the ice out into the backyard for me? Put it by the flowerbeds.”

Cas does as he’s bid, making sure not to knock over any of the delicate blossoms just beginning to peek out of the ground. He checks his cell phone before going back inside. No messages, but he’s not really surprised.

Back in the kitchen, Mary is preparing a salad, chopping the carrots with a bit more vigor and enthusiasm than is generally required. 

“--just saying that he should be here,” Sam is saying when Cas steps into the room. Sam’s eyes flicker over to him. “Cas agrees with me, don’t you Cas?”

“I’m not sure--” Cas begins, but Mary interrupts.

“There’s nothing we can do about it, Sam. Talking about it, getting mad at him when he’s not here... it’s not going to accomplish anything.”

“But--” Sam says. 

Mary slams the knife onto the countertop, and the sound echoes through the kitchen like a gunshot. “That’s enough, Sam. Why don’t you start setting the table?” Mary picks up the knife and resumes her chopping. “Cas, could you get some lettuce from the fridge for me?”

Sam and Cas exchange silent looks. Sam wants to say something, that much is clear, but after a moment, he gets up from the table and gets out the silverware, laying it carefully on the table. Cas gets a head of lettuce from the fridge and hands it to Mary, who thanks him softly, all the while viciously chopping the carrots into teeny tiny pieces. 

When Cas passes by the corner where holographic!Dean is hovering, Dean says, “Mom always was a little scary when she was angry.” Cas snorts softly, not wanting Mary to overhear. 

Dinner is awkward, the silence broken only by the clatter of silverware on china plates. Mary eats barely anything, moving her food around her plate in a desultory fashion.

It's when they're cleaning up that they hear it. The growl of the Impala turning into the street, and then coming to a halt in front of the house. Sam and Cas peer cautiously at Mary, whose lips have thinned to a fine line. She dries her hands on a towel with bright red roosters on it, and then tosses it onto the counter.

Dean - the Dean of this time - is halfway through the doorway when Mary stalks into the hall. She's fury personified, veritable sparks flying off the top of her head, her fists curled at her side. When she sees Dean, though, something in her dissolves, and she grabs him by his collar, pulling him into a fierce hug.

"Hi Mom," Dean says, his voice muffled by her shoulder. Sam and Cas hover behind them in the hall, and Dean's eyes flicker from one to the other. Behind Cas, holographic!Dean clears his throat. Cas can hear the blooping of the handheld device.

"I'm gonna... I'm just going to..." holographic!Dean says. "Yeah." The holographic door opens and closes with an echo. Cas wonders what that was about, but doesn't have time to waste thinking about it. Next to him, Sam is a pot about to boil over.

"Where the hell have you been?" Sam demands, when Mary and Dean pull apart. "You should have been here today." The words come out like a growl, deep from the back of his throat. Cas puts a restraining hand on Sam's arm, but Sam jerks away, advancing on Dean.

"Sam." Mary's voice, warning. 

"Mom needed you here today," Sam continues, ignoring everyone else around him except for Dean. To his credit, Dean doesn't back down, he just watches Sam warily, like an animal keeping an eye on a predator. "We needed you here today," Sam says.

Dean looks down at the floor and then back up, his chin tilted in defiance. 

"No, you didn't." He catches Cas's eye behind Sam. "You guys had Cas, you had each other. You were fine."

Sam snorts, an ugly, derisive sound. "We would have been more than fine if you were here, Dean." And before Dean can respond, Sam rears back and punches him. There's a loud crack and Dean's head snaps back. Blood starts to pour out of his nose.

There's a moment of horrified silence which is broken by the slamming of the front door as Sam exits the house in a huff. Mary lets loose a sound halfway between pain and anger and whirls around. She brushes past Cas into the kitchen. Cas, who's rooted to the spot watches the blood dribble down Dean's chin in fascination. He hears rather than sees a few droplets fall to the floor with light taps. 

Mary returns with some paper towels and a bag of frozen peas, which she shoves unceremoniously into Dean's hands. She dabs gently at Dean's face, cleaning the majority of the blood off his lip and cheek. 

"Put the peas on your face. I'm going to talk to Sam." She turns back to Cas. "Make sure he doesn't go anywhere."

Cas nods dumbly and watches her go. Dean hisses in pain as he ices his cheek and nose. They stare at each other across the hallway for a moment, and then Dean, attempting to lighten the mood, says, "So, most exciting funeral ever?"

Cas rolls his eyes. "Sam's right you know." He's stuck in this strange limbo between being part of this past and being firmly lodged in his future, where this has already happened. He vaguely remembers a fight between Sam and Dean, but doesn't know for sure that it came to blows. Having _his_ Dean, the Dean from the future would have been helpful, Cas thinks. He runs his hands through his hair. 

"Come on, let's get you into the kitchen. If you spill any more blood there, it'll be easier to clean up." Cas ushers Dean into the kitchen and pushes him into a seat at the table. Dean looks like he wants to argue, his mouth hanging half open as he sits, but then he must think better of it. His mouth closes slowly and he rearranges the bag of peas.

Cas finishes cleaning up the dishes, studiously ignoring Dean while he does so, until he can't any longer. He sits and pulls the peas away from Dean's face. "Did he break your nose?"

"I dunno. Maybe," Dean says. His voice sounds stuffy, clogged up by pain.

Cas tsks. "Serves you right." He flips the bag and hands it back to Dean, who takes it wordlessly. 

"That seems a little harsh," Dean says after a moment. "Don't you think?"

Cas regards his friend for a long time before answering. Somewhere deep in his brain are more than two decades of friendship with Dean. Vagaries of time travel aside, at this point in time, Cas has known Dean for about ten years. Dean is one of the most loving, self-sacrificing people he knows. No one is more willing to throw himself into danger for his family or friends than Dean is, nor is Dean the kind of person to shy away from responsibility.

"Why didn't you get here earlier, Dean? What's going on?" Cas asks. Dean lowers his eyes. "Dean."

Dean heaves a sigh before he says, "I was-- I _am--_ angry. I'm pissed off at Dad, Cas, and I didn't want to see him, not like he is now. I'm not ready for that." Rather than respond, Cas lifts an eyebrow and waits for Dean to go on.

"Nothing I did was good enough for him, Cas. And I thought I had time. I thought I'd be finished with my degree, and then I'd have something of my own to show him. And," Dean's breath stutters as he inhales. "And then he up and fucking dies before I had the chance to prove myself to him."

During this speech, Mary comes into the kitchen and leans on the door jamb. "He _was_ proud of you, Dean. Deep down."

Dean gives an aborted snort, which he cuts off with a yelp of pain. "Yeah, Mom, so deep it was lost forever."

Mary pushes off the wall and sits at the table. She takes one of Dean's chilled hands in her own. "You know, Dean, I love your father very much. There were a lot of things that he did that I didn't agree with, and how he treated you was one of them. But that doesn't give you an excuse for abandoning your family." 

Dean winces beneath the bag of frozen peas. His mouth works up and down, like he’s trying to come up with a response to this, but he’s got nothing, apparently. Cas looks on from his vantage point across the table from them, and he feels a little sorry for Dean. 

Mary rubs Dean’s hand, warming it. “We needed you here, all of us.” Mary looks at Cas, including him in the remark. He tilts his head slightly to acknowledge her. “And you fucked up.” She places Dean’s hand on the table, ever gentle and loving, despite the harshness of her words. “It’ll take a while, but Sam’ll come around.” She leaves Cas and Dean staring at each other across the table. _How long will it take for Mary to come around,_ Cas wonders.

* * *

 

Cas flops back on the bunk bed and stares up at the underside. The springs don’t give him any kind of answer about life, the universe and everything. They don’t even give him answers about right now, here in the Winchesters’ old house. Will he ever get home? As novel as this entire experiment has been, the flitting about from one strange lifetime to another is exhausting. 

What Cas really wants is to go home. Not this facsimile of a home that he hasn’t seen in almost ten years, but his actual home. There the technology is familiar, and he knows the people. Being here in his own past has made him realize how much he misses his true home. It’s like an ache in his gut that can’t be soothed. 

As Cas thinks these moribund thoughts, Dean - holographic!Dean - reappears, sliding through the lighted doorway. He sits on the end of the bunk bed and leans forward, elbows on his knees.

“It’s not broken,” he says.

“Hm?” 

“His nose. My nose. His? Whatever. It’s not broken. Sam never broke my nose. See? All fine.” He pinches the end of his nose and wiggles it back and forth a couple of times to demonstrate.

Cas waits. Clearly there’s more than just an update on Dean’s medical condition. 

Dean coughs, rubbing the back of his neck nervously. “Sam and I had this knock down, drag out fight on the lawn, and mom got so mad that she kicked us both out. Sam went back to school, and I, well, you know.”

Cas scrunches up his face. “Actually, I don’t, Dean. Memory’s flown the coop, remember?”

Dean nods. “Yeah, yeah. So, uh, I went back to New York, nearly drank myself to death. You uh, you came and pulled my butt out of that particular hell hole.” Dean takes a deep breath. 

The story has a ring of truth to it, and it settles in Cas’s bones in a familiar way, like coming back to your home after a long time away. 

“So...” Cas says, trying to figure out where this is going.

“So, nothin’,” Dean replies. “But maybe you changed something? I dunno.” Dean scrubs at his face for a moment, lost. 

“But what did I change? I mean, other than you getting your nose broken...” Dean opens his mouth to protest, but Cas rides right over it. “...Or not. If I changed it, would you notice?”

Dean’s brow crinkles while he tries to work that one out. “Time travel is annoying and confusing.”

“And yet this is what you work on,” Cas points out.

Dean huffs a laugh. “Yeah.”

There’s a tap on the door, and both Cas and Dean’s heads whirl around. “Yes?” Cas asks after a wide-eyed look in Dean’s direction.

“It’s Dean.”

Cas’s eyes widen and he throws a mildly panicked look at holographic!Dean, who just shrugs. It’s not like anyone besides Cas can see him.

Cas opens the door for Dean, who’s sporting the beginnings of a spectacular bruise on the side of his nose and his eye. Cas winces in sympathy. Dean shuffles into the room - his room - and looks around warily. When his eyes light on the bookcase, he makes a face, wincing when it moves the muscles around the bruising. He mutters something that sounds like, “fucking Sam”. Unlike holographic!Dean, the Dean of this time looks uncomfortable, like he’s not sure of his welcome. He leans against the desk and crosses his arms over his chest.

“So do you hate me too?” Dean asks, his tone sullen. Holographic!Dean gives a loud snort, and Cas shoots him a glare.

“No. But neither does Sam.” Dean opens his mouth to protest, and Cas interrupts. “Or your mother. They’re just disappointed.”

Dean makes a sad sound and stares down at his feet. “That’s kind of worse, man.”

Cas can practically feel holographic!Dean roll his eyes next to him, but Cas doesn’t dare look. The situation is weird enough as it is.

“You can do something about that,” Cas points out.

Dean looks up at that, a hopeful look on his face. “Yeah?”

“You can apologize.” The huff of irritation from Dean is in stereo - both of them are unimpressed with this advice.

“I don’t have anything to apologize for,” Dean says in a sullen tone. He’s back to examining the toes of his boots, avoiding Cas’s eyes. 

This time Cas does glance at holographic!Dean, who just shrugs. Cas mouths, “Thanks a lot,” and stands up. “I think you know that you do have something to apologize for,” Cas says. He puts his hand on the doorknob. “Why don’t you figure that out? I’m going to go for a walk.” He stalks out of the room, leaving both Deans behind. He doesn’t slam the door, but it’s a close thing.

* * *

 

Cas walks around Lawrence aimlessly for about an hour, wandering up and down treelined streets that should be familiar, but aren’t. His memory’s still full of holes, and it’s only his unerring sense of direction that leads him back to the Winchester house with only a few missteps.

When he turns the corner and sees the little house, Dean and Sam are sitting side-by-side on the front steps, bottles of beers dangling from their hands. Dean’s shoulders are up around his ears, but there’s a tentative smile on his face. Sam’s turned toward his older brother, arms waving as he explains something that Cas can’t hear.

“He...um, I guess, I? Apologized,” Dean’s voice comes from just behind Cas, and he experiences that disorienting vertigo that he’s had ever since he stepped into the time machine however long ago it was. Holographic!Dean stands behind him, the device in his hand, and he looks sheepish.

“I was kind of a little shit back then,” Dean says after a moment. When Cas nods in agreement, Dean swats at Cas, his holographic hand swiping through Cas’s bicep. “Nice. I’m trying to apologize, and you’re insulting me.”

Cas frowns. “You don’t need to apologize to me, Dean.” He looks over his shoulder at the two brothers, noting that both of their angry postures have settled into something much more civil, almost friendly.

Holographic!Dean shrugs and says, “Yeah, but I put you in the middle of...” He waves his hand at the house. “All that.”

Cas gives Dean a small smile, wishing that he could reach out and find that Dean is solid and real. He’s about to say something - he’s not sure what - when things around him begin to fade, and Holographic!Dean disappears.


	5. 2014

It’s the first time that Cas leaps when he's conscious. He expects sparks and sound effects, maybe a transporter effect like on Star Trek, but within the space of a blink, he's no longer in the old Winchester family home. Instead, he's...

Well, where is he?

In a room with white walls and the faintest outline of a door off to his right. The room has a soft glow, like the walls are suffused with light. There's something familiar about the room...for all that it's plain and featureless, that in itself strikes a chord in him. 

Cas looks down at himself, hoping that his clothing will give him some hint as to where and when he is. The blue jumpsuit he's wearing is no help at all, and he's not wearing any jewelry on his hands or arms.

"Just great," he mutters to himself. As he steps toward the outline of the door, though, it swings inward, admitting not one, but two people, and...

"Dean," he breathes.  

Color floods Dean's cheeks and he smiles so widely, it threatens to split his face. Dean strides into the room and pulls Cas into a hug, his arms settling around Cas's shoulders like a well-worn cloak. Cas can barely breathe, but he doesn't want Dean to let go. He grips back with as much strength as Dean, and buries his face in Dean's shoulder.

For the first time in... Well, he has no real idea of how long, Cas can not only see and hear Dean, but he can feel him. Dean's warm and solid in Cas's arms, smelling of leather and spice, and the bristles of his five o'clock shadow rasp against Dean's cheek.

"Are you real?" Cas asks, and he can't be bothered to feel embarrassed by the hope in his voice. Dean answers by squeezing Cas more tightly, and murmuring an assent in Cas's ear, which sends a shiver down his spine. 

A large hand thumps onto Cas's shoulder. "Hey, Cas," Sam says, a wide grin on his face. Cas returns the grin.

He's home. 

* * *

They celebrate. Beer, burgers, an enormous slice of apple pie for Dean, cheesecake for Cas, and ice cream for Sam. Most of the meal they just eat, grinning at each other over their fries.  

Every now and then, Sam shakes his head. “I can’t believe it man. You were in 1979! And 1985!” Cas grins at Sam around a bite of cheesecake, but Sam’s not done. “What was it like? I mean, did you see President Carter? Did you...”

“Sammy!” Dean barks. “Chill out, dude. Let him have five minutes to enjoy his dessert.” 

“Okay, okay,” Sam says, his hands up in a sign of surrender. A rush of affection fills Cas as he sits across from Sam. Everything came flooding back as he had stood wrapped in Dean's embrace, all of it. The years of research they'd done. The overly caffeinated nights of tweaking the code and working on the equipment, where they often lapsed into hysterical laughter at some random mistake. Dean and Sam, his best friends in the world. 

* * *

Dean gives Cas a ride back to Cas's apartment. Dean says it's because Cas is exhausted, but Cas knows it's because Dean wants to make sure he gets home and stays there. Dean's been sneaking looks at Cas for the last hour, and Cas feels the weight of Dean's anxiety like it's his own. 

Dean parks in front of Cas's building, and before he can change his mind, Cas asks, "Come in for a beer?"

"That'd be great," Dean replies, and he shuts off the engine. Dean follows Cas into the apartment. The air's a bit stale, and Cas busies himself with opening the windows and airing out the apartment. He disappears into the kitchen and appears a moment later with two bottles of beer, one of which he hands to Dean.

They sit on Cas's couch and drink in silence for a while, and then Dean sighs and puts his beer down on the table. Cas, sensing that Dean wants to talk, puts his down as well.

It takes a little bit for Dean to work up to whatever it is that he wants to say, but finally, he says, "You forgot me."

Cas shifts in his seat, uncomfortable with the smallness of Dean's voice. "To be fair," Cas points out, "I forgot everyone."

"But you forgot _me_ , Cas." Dean scrubs his face. "I don't just mean that you lost your memory. We started this project together. I thought we were gonna finish it together."

And that's the crux of it, Cas realizes. They'd started the project on a shoestring, working in Dean and Sam's tiny apartment until they'd gotten a hold of some funding grants. They’d rented lab space and the rest is history. 

Cas’s sense of what is considered history is a little skewed right now, though.

But Cas owes Dean an explanation. 

Cas folds his long fingers together. “We did finish it together. I just... It was too dangerous for you to go.”

Dean explodes up off the sofa. “What, and it was safe for you?! Cas, you were jumping through time! We didn’t know if you were going to come back at all!! You could still be out there, god knows when, and I...” Dean stumbles to a halt. “I just couldn’t take that, you fuckin’ idiot.”

“What?” Cas asks, head reeling.

The tips of Dean’s ears flush deep red, and he turns so his back is to Cas. “Nothing,” he mumbles.

“It doesn’t sound like nothing,” Cas says, and he stands up. He gently places his hand on Dean’s shoulder. “Do you want to turn around?” he asks in a quiet voice. The moment feels like a thin layer of ice in early winter; one false step will crack it and they’ll slip into freezing waters. 

“No,” Dean replies, petulant. 

“Why not?” Cas desperately wants Dean to turn around. They’re on the cusp of something, something that’s been in Dean’s eyes for a while. Since 1985, Cas thinks ruefully.

“Well... I,” Dean says, but he’s turning around as he speaks, and his voice catches. His eyes flicker from Cas’s eyes down to his mouth and back up again. If Cas hadn’t been watching carefully, he might have missed it. But the blush in Dean’s ears has spread to his cheeks, and his eyes have darkened, and Cas lets himself be pulled towards Dean. 

Dean’s eyes flutter closed, and Cas concentrates on the dark freckle on Dean’s eyelid. He doesn’t want to think about what he’s doing, he just wants to... 

His lips brush against Dean’s, and it’s barely a touch, really. Dean’s breath hitches, and Cas freezes. Has he read the entire situation wrong? Did Dean mean something else entirely? Cas’s blood thunders in his ears. He takes a step back with his right foot, but Dean grabs his wrist, his hand warm and loose. Cas is not any less tethered to Dean because the hold is tenuous.

Dean murmurs something, more a susurrus of sound than anything, and he closes the gap between the two of them. They’re kissing, mouths moving against each other’s, breath coming in tiny gasps. Dean tastes of beer and apple pie, and Cas wants to know what Dean tastes like underneath the flavors from their dinner. His tongue moves against the roof of Dean’s mouth, tasting, licking away until there’s nothing there but pure _Dean_.   

Dean pulls back from Cas after a long moment that is frankly just _not long enough_ , Cas feels. 

“Cas,” Dean’s voice is wrecked, and Cas smirks. _He_ made Dean sound like that. 

“Dean,” Cas says, and he pulls on Dean’s collar, bringing him closer. He’s had the chance to kiss his best friend just the once, and it’s not enough. It’ll never be enough.

They stumble and trip down the hall together, laughing. When they get to the door to Cas’s room, Dean props one hand up against the door jamb.

“Cas, I need you to promise me something.”

“Anything,” Cas says, tugging on Dean all the while.

“Never do that again. You want to go gallivanting off through time, you’re taking me along.”

Cas grins, all eye crinkles and teeth. This is definitely something he can do. “Okay.”

 


End file.
